Automotive News Canada - January 2022 - 14

14
* JANUARY 2022
CANADA'S EV FUTURE
ADAPTING TO CHANGE
AND SEIZING OPPORTUNITY
PLUGGINGAWAY
Curbside charging is
seen as key to urban-EV
adoption; Toronto is
studying the issue while
Montreal has about 1,000
street chargers in use
By DAVID KENNEDY
T ORONTO BUREAU CHIEF
THE GREATEST CONCENTRATION
of the Canadian population is in cities,
which would seem ideal for electric-vehicle
(EV) adoption. But there's just one
problem, and it's a big one: a
lack of street charging, especially
for people who live in apartments
and condos.
Canadian cities are dealing
with the issue in a variety of
ways. In Toronto, a pilot project
has carved out curbside space
for 17 EV chargers.
Launched in November 2020,
it was initially scheduled to last
12 months but is now in its second
year. Toronto extended the
pilot to gather more data to build
out its charging playbook.
The pandemic proved to be a
" heck of a time " to be writing a
guidebook on charging, said Joe
Bilé, manager of business development
at Toronto Hydro, which partnered
with the city on the project.
" We got results, " Bilé said. " Can you
extrapolate them to nonpandemic times?
I don't know. "
Bilé: The
pandemic was
a " heck of a
time " to create
an EV charging
network.
SUPPLIED PHOTO
cent of Canadians lived somewhere
other than a detached
house. A portion of that figure,
Allan said, will have access to
a charger - in their condo or
townhouse, for instance. But
many others park on the street
or live in older, multiunit buildings
whose electrical infrastructure
makes installing chargers a
nonstarter.
The problem is more acute in
big cities where garages and driveways
are proportionally rarer. Staff
from the city of Toronto were unable
to break out projected demand for street
charging but said the city issues between
50,000 and 60,000 permits to regular street
parkers each year. The figure
hints at the potential market
requirement: Today, EV drivers
do as much as 80 per cent of their
charging at home.
As the Ontario capital develops
its curbside strategy, it will
be looking to emulate success in
Montreal, which, despite early
steps in West Coast locales such
as Vancouver and Victoria,
stands out as the clear Canadian
leader in EV chargers. About
1,000 are located on streets
across Montreal, with locations
determined mainly by population
density and demand, the
city said.
Montreal plans to add 1,000
The careful planning indicates the delicate
balance that municipalities look to
strike on curbside charging. Toronto and
other Canadian cities see higher EV adoption
as vital to reaching their climate targets.
But from site selection to community
engagement and damage and vandalism
prevention, the streetside infrastructure
comes with its own set of unfamiliar
challenges.
As more people trade in their gasoline
or diesel vehicles for EVs, demands
for charging wherever vehicles call
home will keep rising, said Travis Allan,
vice-president of public affairs and general
counsel at the Quebec-based EV charger
manufacturer AddÉnergie.
" If that happens to be on the street,
then people are going to want options for
curbside charging. "
WHERE CAN THE STATIONS BE LOCATED?
But even pinpointing the number of
residents who require curbside chargers
is no simple task.
As of the most recent census, 46.4 per
more curbside chargers by 2025. The
city is far ahead of others on curbside
charging because its dense neighbourhoods
require it, said Jonathan Côté, a
Hydro-Quebec spokesperson for transportation
electrification.
" You want to have those curbside chargers
in the residential areas so people can
charge close to their home at night. "
Hydro-Quebec's charging network, the
Electric Circuit, has also helped the city
get ahead. The provincial utility launched
a new grant program in May that will
see it provide funding for 4,500 chargers
across the province. The Electric Circuit
Toronto's chargers are part of the Flo network of about 7,500 public stations
in Canada and the United States. PHOTO: DAVID KENNEDY
is offering up to $24,000 in backing per
charger - the vast majority of the typical
cost, Côté said. For the first two years
of the eight-year program, Hydro-Quebec
will focus spending on curbside stations.
SITE SUCCESS 'HIT AND MISS'
Meantime, Quebec's $8,000 EV
incentive for buyers has boosted
adoption rates, helping fuel charger
demand and use.
Conversely, low use of the 17
pilot chargers was among the
problems flagged in Toronto's
pilot, especially early on, said
Naz Capano, the city's manager
of operational planning and policy
for transportation. Site selection
for the pilot, he said, turned
out to be " hit and miss. "
" We don't know where all
the EV owners are, " Capano
said, " so it's hard to identify the
appropriate sites. "
looking at telco-type lines. "
It is not a problem unique to Toronto.
Working with cities across the country,
finding space for a charger to be safely
installed while ensuring any cables are
kept off the ground is among the top hurdles,
said AddÉnergie's Allan.
" You really have to be very
careful in a curbside context
because there are so many more
people and dogs and children
and activity happening, " he said.
You want to have those curbside
chargers in the residential areas
so people can charge close to
their home at night.
JONATHAN CÔTÉ
Hydro-Quebec
Over the year of the Toronto
pilot project, use picked up at
some chargers. Certain locations
proved perpetually unpopular,
Capano said, giving the city insight into
how to cater to demand when it pushes its
charger rollout beyond the pilot stage.
The project was also not free from controversy.
The city of Toronto felt backlash
from residents in the pilot areas who
feared that precious street parking spaces
would go exclusively to EVs, Capano said.
Physical limitations cropped up during
siting and installation as well, said
Toronto Hydro's Bilé, noting that the
city's program used chargers mounted on
utility poles.
Capano: " We
don't know
where all the
EV owners are,
so it's hard to
identify the
appropriate
sites. "
SUPPLIED PHOTO
DAMAGE AND VANDALISM
The Electric Circuit has
moved through several generations
of chargers, with early
curbside models not up to handling
typical wear and tear
or run-ins with snowplows or
street sweepers.
" Now we have a version that
is working pretty well to protect
it, but of course it's not against
any sort of damage, " Côté said,
adding that Electric Circuit
chargers are occasionally subject
to vandalism.
" We found some poles actually have
a lot of stuff on them already, " he said.
" So we could find that they're in a perfect
location, but good luck trying to find some
open real estate on the pole itself, because
there could be a lot of cables already dealing
with either streetlights or potentially
Toronto's curbside chargers - part
of AddÉnergie's Flo network of roughly
7,500 public charging stations in Canada
and the United States - have so far
escaped any damage. They also recorded
" outstanding " uptime through the first
year, the city said, pointing to few maintenance
and software problems.
But with chargers becoming critical
infrastructure, repairs are another issue
that cities must contend with, Allan said.
" They need to be subject to a regular
maintenance schedule; so that if something
does happen, they can be quickly
repaired and put back in service, because
people are relying on them. "
Toronto officials say another year of
piloting the chargers will give the city
the information it needs to plan a broader
curbside rollout. - ANC
Automotive News Canada - January 2022

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