In August, Kathleen and I headed to Los Angeles to attend Climate Reality Leadership Corps training. Given the GHG and monetary cost of flying across the continent, we looked for other things we could do while we were in town. Proterra have an assembly plant in the area and I realised it was not that far from where we were going to be staying. I had met members of the Proterra team when they visited Ottawa with a bus earlier in the year for the EV20018VE conference. After a few emails to Proterra we arranged a factory tour for the trainees for the day before the training started.
Switching buses away from fossil fuels is a vital part of climate action, municipal bus fleets are significant emitters of GHGs and a source of considerable air pollution. Here in Ottawa, the bus fleet emits over 160,000 tonnes of CO2 annually and pollutes the city with NOx and particulate matter. A number of North American transit authorities are planning to either stop buying diesel buses or to phase them out completely between now and 2040 and we can look forward to more TAs joining them over time.
On the day of the tour we caught a train from downtown LA to the City of Industry. Proterra picked us up from the station with a brand new bus, for many of the trainees this was their first time on an electric bus. As happened the last time I rode a Proterra bus, I nearly fell over when the bus accelerated away from a light, I should learn to hang on, this is not your grandpa’s bus!
Proterra designed the bus from the ground up allow them to optimise the design and get the weight low. Modern city buses need to have low floors to allow wheelchairs to be loaded easily and to make getting on and off the bus easier for all passengers. Typically buses are built as body on frame, with a complex steel frame supporting the body panels:
This is the steel frame of a New Flyer bus
And this is the “frame” of a Proterra bus
By building a composite monocoque body, Proterra has been able to simplify the design of the bus and provide space under the low-floor for the batteries. The body is built in two parts, top and bottom. Carbon fibre is used where strength is needed. There are a lot of similarities with boat building. Composite boats can last 40+ years whereas bus frames require corrosion repairs and in some cases complete body rebuilds during there 12-18 year life. The bodies are delivered to the LA plant as complete units.
Brian Miller, Head of Proterra’s LA site shows us battery packs waiting to be installed
The battery packs form part of the bus structure when they are installed. Proterra has considered the battery lifecycle and the packs can be stacked for use in a second life power storage solution. In many electricity markets, including Ontario, having power storage available at the bus depot can significantly reduce the cost of charging.
A bus in production for Yosemite National Park
The front and rear suspensions are bolted directly to the body.
The production line was full the day we were there. Proterra have a backlog of orders and they are looking to speed up production. I asked how many hours they take to build the bus and the targets, the plant manager had the numbers on where they stand and where they want to be.
Proterra is in the process of setting up a second line in the same space, having recovered some space from a tenant in the building.
Brian Millar and Lee Wixom point out the finer points of building buses
Our hosts were generous with their time and very open. Some of Proterra’s leadership has worked at Tesla and there are similarities between the companies. Both are start-ups with no fossil fueled baggage, both are based in Silicon Valley.
Happy Climate Reality Leadership Trainees
Our group of trainees were happy to be given a really good introduction to electric buses. Seeing how they are built and how much simpler they are than a diesel bus, was eye opening for all of us. I work around buses everyday and Proterra has a really interesting value proposition that goes beyond just swapping the power source but looks towards a future where buses are just simpler and lower maintenance.
Proterra dropped us back at the station in the City of Industry and spent even more time answering questions and showing features of the bus while we waited for the train.
Thanks go out to TJ Nass, Brian Millar and Lee Wixom for hosting and to Michael Hennessy and Steve O’Neil for setting up the visit. A couple of days later, Ryan Popple, Proterra’s CEO was one of the presenters at the Climate Reality Leadership training. Ryan was not there to promote Proterra but to take part in a much wider climate discussion and it was clear from his words that climate action is one of the major motivators of the management of Proterra.
Over 4 days in June we traveled from our home in Ottawa to Baie-Trinité on the North shore of the St Lawrence and back. The journey was a great chance to look at how the charging network in Quebec is deployed and to look at how the rest of Canada can learn from Quebec’s experience. The North shore or Côte-Nord is a vast, sparsely populated area with about 1% of Quebec’s population.
Over the 4 days we drove up and back with a stop in Quebec City in both directions. Each day was about 500km, with two Level 3 fast charges each day.
The Quebec charging network is impressive, The Electric Circuit has about 115 Level 3 fast chargers in Quebec and Eastern Ontario. The chargers have all been deployed strategically, mainly on highways with good spacing. Many of the stations have a level 2 charger as a backup. At heavily used locations 2 or more fast chargers have been installed.
Electric Circuit’s Charger Network
The conditions for the drive were very good, just about perfect temperatures and low winds, allowing our e-Golf to excede her rated range of 201 kms. On the way to Quebec City we stopped at Galeries d’Anjou, a Shopping Centre in the east end of Montreal (Click on the link for the Plugshare information on the charger). We arrived with 22kms left on the Guess-O-Meter (GOM) after about 203 km. It was dinner time, and by the time we had found the food court and eaten the finest fast food available, the car was charged.
The Guess-O-Meter showing an optimistic 262 km range
The next stop was at Roulez Électrique in Trois-Rivieres, a run of about 125 km. Another 125 km later we stopped for the night at Château Repotel Henri IV in Quebec City. The hotel had one Level 2 charger which provided a full charge overnight. Hotels are increasingly providing chargers to their guests, As anyone with an EV will strongly prefer to charge overnight, this is a good business move. Tesla offers a “Charging Partners Program” to provide discounted or free chargers to hotels and similar places. This program will provide both Tesla and regular Level 2 chargers to suitable properties.
After a quick stop in St Anne de Beaupré to pick up coffee, we headed off to our first charging stop at Saint-Siméon, a distance of about 182 km. St Anne would be a great spot for a charger, but the Church does not seem to be up to speed yet. Past St Anne, the geography changes, you are no longer in the relatively flat country that stretches from Windsor to Quebec City. The terrain becomes much more three-dimensional, with rolling hills and great views of the St Lawrence.
Saint-Siméon is a great example of how to do a charging station right, located at the tourist information centre in the village, with toilets on-site. The station has a Level 2 as backup and is prewired so that another Level 3 fast charger can be added when it is needed. The only thing missing was a little coffee shop.
Sometimes things are not as they should be. The next charger from Saint-Siméon is at Forestville, a 135 km run. Sadly this charger was not working, but thankfully this was clear from Plugshare. So the next available charger is at Ville de Ragueneau about 207 km from Saint-Siméon. Thankfully, this was in range, we had over 260km on the GOM. The drive to Ragueneau was great, nice roads, a ferry and lots of great views. The only downside was the hills. EVs don’t use a lot more going up and down hills, but the GOM will guess that the big hill you are going up will continue forever and show a big drop in range. This is restored as you come down the hill, so other than creating some range anxiety, it all works out in the end. It would be nice to have the GOM look at the elevation and give better numbers, but Alice does not have a built in nav system, we use Android Auto which needs an EV mode, but that’s another story.
The charger at Ragueneau came into view with about 25 km left on the GOM and all was well. The picture at the top of this post was taken there. Another tourist information location with toilets, a park, right on the shore. After a quick stop in Baie-Comeau, we got to Baie-Trinité in the afternoon.
We stayed overnight at a friends house so we had 16 hours of Level 1 charging before we left on the return trip via Quebec City with a GOM of about 160 km. We stopped at Ragueneau for a full charge as the car was heavier and we had a bit of a headwind. We arrived at Saint-Siméon with 32 km on the GOM.
We stayed overnight at the Hotel Chateau Laurier in Quebec City, taking advantage of one of the 4 charging stations they have in their parking.
In the morning we played tourist in Quebec City and had crepes for lunch. Heading home in the afternoon we stopped at Baie-de-Maskinongé, a highway service centre that turned out to be on the eastbound lanes adding a few kms to the trip. The last stop was at Rigaud. The weather was warm and this stop saw our charging speed drop to about 20kW or about 122 km/h. This delayed us by about 20 minutes. This was the same behaviour seen by Tesla Bjorn in his e-Golf test drive. I have now got an OBDeleven so I can monitor the battery temperatures and all the other charging parameters, but given that it took 4 long days for this to happen rather than the few hours it took Bjorn, I am not too concerned.
Much of Quebec is now easily accessible to almost all EVs, at least in the summer and is a great place to tour. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have growing networks and travel from Ottawa to Halifax and beyond will be very simple by next year. The charging network is designed with the right spacing of chargers, with capacity added where needed. Quebec should be used as a model for other provinces.
The Government of Canada is working on a new Canadian Zero-Emission Vehicle Strategy to be published this year. We have been wondering if this might answer some of the issues that surround the slow uptake of EVs and PHEVs in Canada. In this search we found the “Canada’s ZEV Policy Handbook” This was a really interesting read and but, and this is a a big but, it promotes perhaps the slowest possible transition away from fossil fueled cars to ZEVs. Based on the idea that we should have an ZEV market share of 30% by 2030 and 40% by 2040, by which time India, China, much of Europe and several other jurisdictions will be at 100% market share, by virtue of banning fossil fueled vehicles. Cities across the world are considering banning all fossil fueled vehicles as soon as 2030.
We hope this lack of ambition will not be reflected in the new Strategy. Slow progress will ensure that Canada becomes a dumping ground for fossil fuel vehicles as the rest of the world moves into an electrified future. This will lead to damage to the environment, our pocketbooks and to the auto industry.
Canada is in 20th place for ZEV sales, with less the 1% market share. If we take a look a the electricity grid in the the same group of 20 countries, Canada has the 6th cleanest, with less than 20% of our electricity coming from GHG producing sources.
Data from EV-Volumes.com (1H 2017)
To put it another way, an EV in Canada is a far more effective way of reducing GHG emissions than an EV in most other countries. It is to our shame that we are not pulling on this very large climate change lever as hard as we possibly can.
It is worth taking a look at the countries that are doing well. Norway, Iceland and Sweden share much of our climate and Norway and Sweden also have a similar population density to Southern Canada.
So climate and population density are not valid excuses, so why are we where we are?
We think a small part of the reason is that Canada is a very conservative country, change happens slowly and we tend to look south for our cues rather than looking to the leaders in an area for ideas. That said, we think the larger part of this slow progress is due to the simple fact that the fossil fuel and automobile sectors will lose out as we transition from fossil to electric vehicles.
In the end state we will have vehicles that cost a lot less than the current fossil-powered ones. As battery costs fall, the simplicity of EVs will take over and manufacturing costs will be less than those of fossil vehicles in the next couple of years. Maintenance costs for EVs are much lower than fossil cars due to very few moving parts.
Car manufacturers are faced with consumers paying less per vehicle, Dealers will be doing less warranty work, oil companies will be selling far less gas and diesel.
Whilst powerful lobbies lose, society wins in this equation: less GHG emissions, less pollution, less particulates and less noise. Individuals win: lower costs of purchasing, far lower operating costs. The power companies win: load on the grid is spread and evened out making management easier, sales are higher, opportunities arise to gain a big advantage from vehicle to grid, to allow EVs to supply power during sudden peaks in demand.
Politics is about the art of the possible and we are sure that car manufacturers and oil companies are lobbying hard to ensure that Canada is the last country to move away from the status quo.
So what might be possible, even in a climate where the government is being told it is too hard a change to make?
Graphic from Pod Point via Fully Charged
This is what is possible for the UK market. Click on the graphic to see a great discussion. We can shift this 2-3 years to the right for a view of what we can do in Canada.
Targets
Given that Norway will be above 50% market share for EVs and PHEVs in 2018 we think it is important that Canada set a strong target. 30% by 2030 is not going to address our Paris commitments and will result in consumer demand being ahead of supply and infrastructure.
Proposal: Target 50% ZEV market share by 2028
PHEV market share would be above and beyond the 50% level.
A 50% market share by 2028 will allow Canada to achieve close to 100% electrification by 2050 whilst providing time for infrastructure build out and industry to adapt.
Supply
Currently it is not possible to go to a car dealer, test drive an EV and then pick up a new EV a few days later. Waiting lists for EVs are long, 6-12 months depending on the manufacturer. Current Provincial measures have been enough to generate far more sales than the car companies are willing to deal with. Supply management is key to ensuring the availability of EVs from all companies across all vehicle types.
Today there are EVs and PHEVs in most categories, but few choices within a category, providing almost no choice for consumers.
Quebec has introduced a ZEV mandate to try to ensure that supply will be available for the future. Quebec has joined Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont in adopting California’s Air Resource Board (CARB) ZEV Mandate. The CARB mandate is a points system, you get a maximum of 1.3 points for a PHEV and a maximum of 4 points for a pure EV depending on range. For example a Chevy Volt PHEV gets 0.83 points while our e-Golf would get 1.75 points. The CARB requirements are not very ambitious, aiming for about 8% market share in 2020. To meet the 50% goal by 2028 it might be necessary to go beyond CARB’s requirement in 2025 and beyond by reducing the points for PHEVs and increasing the points requirement to get closer to the change required to meet 50% market share.
Proposal: Adopt CARB ZEV Mandate with enhanced measures from 2025
Additional measures may be required, but these should be considered in concert with provincial programs.
Demand
Quebec, Ontario and BC have direct subsidies that have been effective in creating demand but, at least in Ontario created a lot of work and delays in processing individual claims. Any measures aimed at large scale adoption of EVs have to be simpler to implement.
Ontario has proposed removing the provincial portion of HST on all EVs. This mirrors the key measure used so successfully in Norway. With HST at 13% in Ontario compared with 25% in Norway, this lever is not very long, especially if it is limited to the provincial portion. Removing the federal GST portion of 5%, nationwide, would send a strong signal to consumers. This would remove about $2000 from the cost of the average car.
If we are aiming for 50% market share this would create a serious hole in the budget, so we propose increasing the GST portion as the market share rises. GST should increase by 1% each time EVs achieve another 10% market shareBy the time the 50% target is reached, GST would be restored to the normal level and would hold at that level. PHEVs would not be eligible for the GST reduction.
An important principle for climate change is polluter pays. This is a hard sell for politicians but there is a case to be made for increasing taxes on fossil powered vehicles. We propose that GST on new and used fossil powered vehicles be increased by 0.25% per year until the rate reaches 8%. Each increase will add about $90 t0 the cost of an average car. Combined with the GST relief on pure EVs, this would generate about a $1B per year over time. This revenue should be used to pay for transitional costs such as charging infrastructure, electric buses and garbage trucks etc. PHEVs would maintain the 5% rate.
Proposal: Reduce GST to 0% on pure EVs, reinstating the 5% rate in stages as market share increases. Increase the GST on fossil powered vehicles by 0.25% per year until the rate reaches 8%. Plug-in Hybid EVs should continue to be taxed at 5%.
Canada’s gas and diesel is far cheaper that the G7 average (73% of the average in 2012) Federal excise tax on gas has been 10c/l since 1995 and 4c/l on diesel since 1987. Businesses do not pay GST, it is always passed on to the consumer. Excise tax is paid by all, not just individuals. Increasing excise tax on fuels sends a clear signal to the larger GHG emitters. The excise tax should be raised gradually to give businesses time to move away from fossil fuel. Again this increase in tax should be used to fund electrification.
Proposal: Increase excise tax on gas by 1c/l per year, increase excise tax on diesel by 2c/l per year. This increase should not stop until all 2050 climate change goals are achieved.
Auto Industry Support
Canada spends a lot of money supporting the auto industry. Canada’s auto industry is critical to the economy of Canada and Ontario. Local production and export of vehicles comes close to balancing imports. Canada and Ontario subsidise key projects for all 5 manufacturers. In 2017 Ontario and Canada each invested $100M in an engine plant for Ford This was an investment in the past, and moving forward we need to be clear that we will only provide support for the future. In 2017 over $600M was promised to support the auto industry and not a penny went to moving the industry away from fossil fuels. Under the proposals here, Canada’s electrification rate will lead the US, providing opportunities for Canadian factories to benefit as the US catches up.
Proposal: Any federal auto subsidies should be to support the move away from fossil fuels.
Messaging
Consumers lack information about the advantages of EVs and the real costs of owning a fossil fuel vehicle. To reach the 50% goal, consumers need to be informed and educated. We can start by forcing manufacturers to compare the emissions and costs of running a fossil powered vehicle with an EV and PHEV in the same class. This should be on the window sticker and in the brochures. This would provide a direct message to the consumer that a fossil powered vehicle is going to cost $2000 more per year to run and emit 4-5 tonnes of GHG per year.
The current EnerGuide Label for Canada, how different would this be if EVs were included on the scale.
When politicians talk about climate change the language used is often weak and shows a lack of real leadership. We need to lead the public with clear messaging. We need to look at driving a fossil powered vehicle in the future much as we do smoking in public. There will be a time when driving a fossil car will be socially unacceptable.
Over time, governments moved from supporting tobacco companies to telling the public that they should consider giving up smoking. This moved to clearer “Smoking Kills” messages and eventually to government suing tobacco companies for the health costs of smoking. Today, people still smoke, but how many in a particular country depends largely on government action.
The transition from fossil fueled vehicles to EVs will mirror this process, this will require that politicians be both honest and knowledgeable about climate change and the impact of not doing a lot more than we are planning today.
We hope that Ministers Garneau, McKenna and Prime Minister Trudeau understand that we have to move forward with a concerted effort to educate, advise and support consumers in making the right choices.
Action
If you have found this post interesting, can you support this plan by emailing your MP and Minister Garneau, our minister of Transport?
Click here for a starting point for your email, you can find your MP’s email address here. The email includes a BCC to our address so we can see your response. Add your MP to the CC and write your own thought on the subject. Our experience is that Minister Garneau’s staff read the emails and respond, you can make a real difference to the conversation.
In October the City of Kingston approved a new Kingston Electric Vehicle Strategy. This document lays out a series of actions Kingston will take to reduce the council’s own transportation related green house gas (GHG) emissions and how they will help citizens and visitors do the same.
We have an interest how Kingston does this besides as a good example for the City of Ottawa to follow. We lived in Kingston for several months in 2015 and 2016 preparing for our trip south on Kinship and we have a son studying at Queens so we visit several times a year.
The strategy addresses three “Target Areas”, let’s take a look:
Target Area 1 – Electrification of Municipal Fleet
Kingston is going to start with their fleet of cars and light commercial vehicles. This a natural outcome of the current pricing and incentives available. As older vehicles in this class come up for replacement, they will be replaced with EVs and Level 2 chargers will be installed. Later transit buses and other vehicle will come into play as options become available. The City of Kingston is a member of the Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC) A consortium exploring options for electric buses in Canada, starting with a pilot project in York Region I suspect that Kingston will find that buses are available today that can meet their requirements.
Target Area 2 – Support Community Adoption and Use of EVs
Kingston has only a handful of charging stations today, although it is worth pointing out that on a per-capita basis they have more stations than Ottawa. Kingston is going to install 2 DC Fast Chargers and 25 dual level 2 AC chargers across the city. This network will allow visitors and locals to charge in many handy locations. There is a certain amount of “build it and then they will come” here, but the plan is sound and it will draw EVs to downtown which is under served today. As visitors this is great for us, we have to charge in the West end today, well away from Queens, downtown and where our son lives. Charging will be free at the Level 2 stations, the DC stations will be in the $10-15 range.
Kingston is also working on preparing the grid and having EV charging as an integral part of new builds for the City.
Target Area 3 – Support Municipal Employees Use of EVs
This target area is weaker than the other area, the City is planning on installing chargers for employees if there is demand. For many Cities this is an area with real impact, hopefully Kingston will follow through on this.
Budget
Kingston’s initial capital investment in these programs is $796,000, representing 0.15% of the total 2018 budget. If Ottawa was to allocate the same percentage we would be looking about $5,000,000. Kingston is to be congratulated on their commitment, I will look to 2019 to see how their bus fleet electrification progresses. Kingston spend about $82,000 per year supporting the operation of the chargers with cost reductions from fees reducing this over time.
As a Model for Other Municipalities
Using Kingston as a model is certainly valid for small-medium municipalities in Ontario. The current provincial programs support the switch and similar sized cities could implement this strategy successfully. Larger Cities can take much from the strategy, but it would need to be adapted to the larger organisation sizes involved.
Kingston is evidence that leadership and a relatively small budget commitment can go a long way to starting the process of reducing the GHG impact in a way that saves money.
