Ontario to spend $7-billion on sweeping climate change plan - EV Specific Details

The Globe and Mail unveiled details of the Ontario Liberal party’s plan to spend approximately 7 billion on a sweeping climate change plan. The details were debated by cabinet last Wednesday and subsequently obtained by the Globe and Mail. The Globe has published some of the highlights from the plan; many of which are incredibly positive for the eco-conscious. However some may be hard to swallow such as completely moving off natural gas as a heating fuel by 2050.

In and among the highlights were several huge initiatives for accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles:

      ·     $285 million for electric vehicle incentives including:

o   The current up to $14,000 rebate for every electric vehicle sold.

o   The current $1000 charger rebate.

o   Taking the provincial portion off the HST of electric vehicle sales.

o   An extra subsidy for low and moderate income households to buy electric vehicles.

o   Free overnight electricity for charging electric vehicles.

o   More charging stations at government buildings including LCBOs.

o   Consideration to make chargers mandatory on all new buildings.

• $280-million to help school boards buy electric buses and trucking companies switch to lower-carbon trucks, including by building more liquid natural gas fuelling stations.
• $375-million for research and development into new clean technologies, including $140-million for a Global Centre for Low-Carbon Mobility at an Ontario university or college to develop electric and other low-carbon vehicle technology.

The most significant pieces of information here are:

• A dollar figure has been put on EV incentives, if $285 million went into $14,000 rebates alone that would be over 20,000 rebates!
• Taking the provincial portion of the HST off electric vehicle sales would be a huge boon to EV sales and could be as much as an additional $2,500 off each EV sale on average.
• Free overnight electricity for EV charging, presumably through special metering could be worth as much as $30-60 per month for each EV owned.

The plan is to be paid for by the province’s upcoming cap-and-trade system and aims to cut emissions to 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, 37 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050. On the electric vehicle side, the goals are to expand EV sales to 5 per cent of all vehicles sold by 2020, up to 12 per cent by 2025, and aim to get an electric or hybrid vehicle in every multivehicle driveway by 2024, a total of about 1.7 million cars.

All in all it is positive news. I will keep an eye on these initiatives and post updates when this plan is passed through the Ontario legislature. 

You can read the Globe and Mail's full article here.