Context For an EV Transition: Carbon Footprints and Curious Consumers

On the first episode of Sparking the Transition, you'll learn how electric vehicles lower emissions, get us closer to a net-zero future, and how we can maximize their climate benefits through cooperation. I'll summarize the federal government's climate goals and how their EV policies can help you. I'm joined by EV-curious consumer Ben Schulman, who recently purchased a new vehicle. What factors were top of mind for him, did he buy electric, and which electric vehicle is the coolest?


To Learn More...
Check out the carbon intensity of filling up your vehicle (or one like yours) in different provinces with the Canadian Energy Regulator’s handy tool (Note that the data used is from 2018).

Or, to get an idea of total driving costs, try CAA's Driving Cost Calculator

For a great introduction to the concept of the 15-minute city, I recommend this article from the Congress on new Urbanism.

If you want to read the fully cited copy of this transcript, you can download it here

I recorded this podcast from Toronto, Ontario on land that is the ancestral territory of the Anishinaabek, Chippewas, Haudenosaunee, Wendat, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nations and is covered by Treaty 13 and the Williams Treaties.  Learn more about the treaties that cover the land you’re on and the original stewards and inhabitants of those lands by visiting www.native-land.ca

Transcript

This is Sparking The Transition, the podcast that examines the barriers and solutions to electric vehicle adoption in Canada. 

Hi Folks, Welcome to Episode One of Sparking the Transition. I’m your host, Lucas Porter; I’m glad to have you here. 

20 years ago, conversations about the effects of climate change or the potential of electric vehicles were relatively rare and held mainly by environmentalists and academics. Since then, both topics have exploded into the public dialogue, becoming household buzzwords and perennial political talking points. In our greenhouse gas-emitting, car-centric world, electric vehicles have huge potential to revolutionize the way we drive, reduce carbon emissions, and help Canada meet its targets under the Paris Climate Accords.

In this first episode, we’re going to cover the basics of EVs and how they can fit into Canada’s low-carbon climate future. We’ll explore exactly how electric vehicles lower emissions and the positive impacts they have on both the climate and our immediate environment. To support their climate goals, I’ll discuss the actions the federal government has taken to encourage you to make your next car electric. You’ll also hear my conversation with EV-curious consumer Ben Schulman. 

Ben: “That’s a huge factor, for sure. That might even be the biggest factor in like, most people deciding what vehicle they buy.” 

Ben’s decision on whether an EV was right for him will give us a look into the mind of a consumer who faced the same questions many of you may be having about your next car. Did he decide to buy something electric? All of this and more on this episode of Sparking the Transition!

We’re not getting a lot of good news on the climate front these days. A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that, though the rate of emissions growth has slowed, total global emissions continue to rise each year. We are emitting more greenhouse gases now than at any time in human history and there is wide scientific consensus that the next eight years will be crucial in determining what kind of climate we’ll have for centuries to come. 

Climate change is already responsible for an increase in the severity and frequency of droughts and food shortages, heat waves, sea level rise, and ocean warming. The emissions responsible for this, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, come primarily from burning fossil fuels. When we talk about fossil fuels, we’re referring to coal, natural gas, and crude oil (which, among other products, is refined into gasoline). Globally, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels account for 64% of anthropogenic emissions. If the world is going to go carbon-neutral by mid-century, everything that relies on the energy produced from those fossil fuels will need to transition to using electricity, or substitute coal, gas, or oil for a non-emitting fuel source like hydrogen. Progress on this transition has been slow due, in part, to a phenomenon known as technological lock-in. Essentially, we continue to use the fuels we’ve used for decades because as a society, we have invested so much time, money, and resources into extracting, refining, distributing, and harnessing this energy to provide useful services that it would be incredibly expensive, and difficult to transition to a different energy source. But now, clean energy and electricity hold the key to breaking free of lock-in and transitioning to a carbon-free future. This transition will impact every economic sector and every country across the globe. Some sectors have relied primarily on fossil fuel energy for over a century and will be particularly challenging to decarbonize. 

If your mind went straight to the transportation sector when I said that, then you’re ready to dive in with me.  

We don’t like to think about it very much, but Canada emits a lot of carbon dioxide. In 2019, Canada ranked as the 10th highest global emitter of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Coming in at 20 tons of CO2 per capita, we have the third highest emissions of the G20 countries and emit approximately 3 times the global average on a per capita basis.  

It’s hard to conceptualize just how much that is, so think about it this way: if we divide Canada’s 739mt of yearly emissions into an equal share for each Canadian, your share would be the equivalent of driving around the world… twice. 

Canada’s transportation sector is responsible for a quarter of those emissions. But we’re not here to discuss air travel, boats, or shipping; we’re going to leave those categories aside and focus on the 12 percent that stems from passenger vehicles. Cars, SUVs, light trucks, and motorcycles make up half of the emissions from the transportation sector and are a big focus in the federal government’s 2030 reduction plan.

Under the Paris Climate Accords, the Trudeau government has committed to reducing emissions to 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030. Their 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan states that they are banking on a 25% drop in transportation-related emissions from current levels – a drop they anticipate will come almost entirely from an uptake in electric vehicles. 

Now, before we go any further, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page when we talk about electric vehicles, and exactly what benefits they can have for the environment. Broadly speaking, there are four different types of vehicles on the market, ranging from not-at-all electric to 100% electric. On the far side of the scale, conventional internal combustion engine vehicles rely on gasoline or diesel for fuel. Throughout this podcast, you may hear me refer to conventional vehicles – these are what I’m talking about. A step beyond that we have hybrids. The Toyota Prius is the classic example of a hybrid car. These vehicles use both an electric and a conventional motor. During periods of low fuel efficiency, say, when you’re idling at a red light, taking off from a dead stop, or flooring it to merge into highway traffic, the electric motor kicks in to provide extra power. The electric boost means the conventional engine doesn’t need to be as powerful, and a smaller motor has the dual advantages of weighing less and using less fuel, making hybrids more efficient than conventional vehicles. A hybrid’s electric motor is powered by an internal battery that stays charged by recovering electricity from the car’s kinetic energy when braking. 

A step up from the traditional hybrid is the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Often referred to by the acronym PHEV, plug-in hybrids operate in the same way as a conventional hybrid, but with a much larger battery. Whereas conventional hybrids use the electric motor to improve gasoline fuel efficiency, plug-in hybrids can operate as electric cars, using only the battery and electric motor to drive distances of up to 60 - 75 km, before the gasoline engine kicks in. PHEVs recharge with regenerative braking as well as, like the name suggests, by plugging them into a charging station. 

Finally, we have Electric Vehicles, herein referred to as EVs. Electric vehicles operate solely with an electric motor powered by a battery that is charged by plugging it into an outlet or charging station. Though they have a similar appearance to conventional vehicles, EVs are typically heavier due to their battery packs, and the small motor size frees up additional storage space under the hood. Modern EVs have a range comparable to many conventional cars, with many popular models able to travel well over 400km between charges. 

A 2016 report on Canadian EV policy stated that “with Canada’s current electric grid, an electric vehicle could reduce emissions 45% to 98% compared with a conventional … vehicle.  The difference in emissions reductions depends on where in the country the electricity was generated. Provinces generate electricity in different ways, which is what ultimately determines the emissions savings from EVs. Electricity coming from coal or natural gas-fired power plants is going to have a much larger carbon footprint than electricity generated from an off-shore wind farm. By way of example, let’s compare two provinces with very different electricity generation systems: Quebec and Alberta. In 2018, Quebec generated over 95% of its electricity from hydroelectric dams and less than 1% came from greenhouse gas emitting sources. This means charging a Tesla Model 3 in Quebec would have produced only 102g of CO2 emissions. Compare this to Alberta, where that same year, 92% of electricity was generated from coal and natural gas. Charging that same Tesla in Calgary would have produced 54kgs of CO2 emissions, which is over 500 times more emissions. In fact, under these conditions, it would actually have been more environmentally friendly to drive a conventional hybrid car with great fuel efficiency than an EV in Alberta. Now, this is the most extreme contrast I could find in Canada. And Alberta has since announced it will phase out its coal-fired electricity generation by 2023, which will significantly reduce its emissions from electricity generation. This example isn’t meant to disparage Alberta or praise Quebec, simply to illustrate how important a low-carbon electricity grid is to unlocking the full climate benefits of EVs.

To address this, the federal government is in the process of creating clean electricity regulations with a goal of a country-wide net-zero grid by 2035, at which point emissions from EV charging across Canada will be negligible, regardless of what province you’re in. Nation-wide emission-free electricity is a crucial step towards the larger goal of becoming net-zero by 2050. Thanks in large part to our hydro and nuclear power, Canada currently generates approximately 82% of its electricity from non-emitting sources. Reaching a net-zero grid means decarbonizing or replacing the remaining 18% and making sure that all new generating capacity comes from carbon-free sources. Not only will this maximize the climate benefits of EVs, but it will also set us up to fully realize the benefits of electrifying other systems, like home heating. There are positive signs that provinces – the ones that largely control electricity generation – are making moves to decarbonize their electricity. For instance, Canada’s Energy Regulator predicted that Alberta and Saskatchewan will lead the nation in a growing renewable energy boom, though in Ontario, some of those gains will be undermined by a provincial plan to increase their reliance on natural gas-fired power plants as one of its nuclear power plants goes offline in 2025. 

With so much focus on climate change in the EV conversation, other environmental benefits are often overlooked or forgotten. Air pollution from cars, trucks, and buses doesn’t just sail into the upper atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse effect; it affects local conditions too, and densely populated urban centers are especially at risk for transportation-related air pollution. Nationally, poor air quality is estimated to cause over 15,000 premature deaths per year. Now, vehicle emissions are far from the only cause of air pollution, but their contributions cannot be overlooked, especially in urban centers. Case in point, vehicle emissions are the largest source of air pollution in Southern Ontario. Research conducted in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area on the effects of replacing conventional vehicles with EVs has shown there are huge health and related economic benefits. If EVs made up 25% of the cars on the road, the reduction in air pollution would prevent 50 deaths per year in the region, and in a scenario with a net-zero energy grid, where 100% of vehicles are electric, that number increases to 330, representing a total social value of close to 4 billion dollars. And that’s just for one region. Cleaner air, healthier populations, and the associated cost savings to our healthcare system are important benefits of an EV transition that shouldn’t be forgotten as we move away from conventional vehicles. 

I want to be really clear about something before we go on. Electric vehicles are an essential technology that will help us reach our collective climate goals. But they are not the only solution we need to consider, even when we’re specifically talking about how to reduce emissions from transportation. Before we understood the climate impacts of burning fossil fuels, we began to plan our cities around cars. Suburbia was predicated on the idea of the car. If we can change the shape of our built environments; change where we work, live, and play, in a way that deprioritizes the car altogether, we’ll reduce our emissions in the short term, and our electricity demand in the long term. A recent study found that more compact urban forms, intensification, and non-car-centric transportation infrastructures like public and active transportation options can reduce emissions from vehicles by up to 25%. These policy shifts are captured nicely in the concept of the 15-minute city. A relatively new concept in urban planning circles, the 15-minute city is one example of how urban areas can be reorganized to “provide access to all human needs by walking or biking for a quarter-hour or less”, with one of the main benefits of the 15-minute city being the deprioritization of car-based transportation in favour of walking, cycling, and public transit. 

So why am I telling you about urban planning concepts? Well, while the focus of this podcast is the electric vehicle, it’s important to remember that new technologies, ideas, and climate solutions often work better together and there is no single solution to the climate crisis. EVs and carbon-free electricity are just one way to approach the problem, and while I believe they will be an important piece of the net-zero puzzle, there are other approaches to reducing emissions that merit consideration. I chose to focus this podcast on EVs because I believe that the level of technology, political will, and public knowledge has reached a critical mass for a revolutionary shift in the near term. 

You’re about to hear my conversation with Ben Shulman, an EV-curious consumer who agreed to speak with me about his thought process when considering whether an EV was right for him. You’ll hear what factors influenced his decision, and we’ll talk about how car design, self-perception, and where you live might influence what car you drive. Ben is a great example of someone interested in electric vehicles and it is my hope that this conversation will resonate with other EV-curious consumers. As you listen, I encourage you to be curious about what your top considerations are. In the interest of transparency, I must disclose that Ben is also my cousin. This fact does not alter the subject matter of our conversation, but I feel that disclosure is always important. My conversation with Ben, coming up. 

Lucas: So I'm here with Ben Shulman for this interview about why he chose to buy the car that he did. I think Ben is a wonderful example of an average consumer, and I really wanted to have him on because he is interested about EVs. He did a bit of research on them, and knowing what he knows, even as an engineer, he made an informed decision. And Ben, what was that decision? Did you decide to buy an EV?

Ben: I did not buy an EV, much to your chagrin and my chagrin.

Lucas: So, when you were thinking about buying a new car, what car did you buy, just out of curiosity?

Ben: I'm currently rolling around in a 2021 Subaru Crosstrek, the classic car of the suburban Nova Scotian millennial.

Lucas: What initially made you consider an EV to begin with?

Ben: I mean, I'm generally just interested in vehicles. I follow a lot of car reviewers on YouTube, so I'm pretty up to date on where vehicle tech is in general. Not just with EVs, but most vehicles kind of across the board. And of course, the classic sales pitch for an EV is interesting. Charging them up isn't free, but it's certainly much less than gas. We don't drive a ton, which I think is probably a pretty decent use case for an electric vehicle. I mean, they're cool. It's definitely the way that the industry is headed. So it would have been cool to have been I guess it's not really an early adopter at this point, but a relatively early adopter.

Lucas: You'd still be leaving the charge, that's for sure. You looked at the pros and con and I know there are a lot of both camps for someone in Nova Scotia, and that I think might factor into the decision as well. We can circle back to that a little bit. I think that's an interesting part of it, too. What were the main or the really key barriers and incentives that you considered when you were buying an evolution? You call it a ballot box issue. Like one thing when you made your decision, that trumped everything else.

Ben: Yeah, it's a good question. I've been thinking about it a bit the last couple days, but when it comes to reasons why I would not and did not decide to purchase or lease an electric vehicle, and maybe two and a half reasons, reason number one is the cost of them. They're far more expensive. It seems like every week a company is saying they're about to release a cost-competitive, nonluxury version of an electric vehicle. I think I actually just saw today that GM is going to be coming out with a $30,000 EV SUV. I'm sure that's USD, and I'm sure that's with absolutely the lowest trim level, but that's getting close, that's getting down there. But straight up, the cost of electric vehicles, they're pretty expensive.

Lucas: The sticker price on those, it's one of the biggest disincentives, even still, and they're cheaper than they were five or ten years ago. But compared to the Hyundai Kona, for example, there's an EV version and a regular version, an EV version, it's like five to $10,000 more upfront.

Ben: Exactly.

Lucas: And that's a huge consideration for a lot of people. I totally get that.

Ben: And then the second thing, of course, is the charging infrastructure, which exists here. It's not awesome, but it does exist here. I'm speaking to this based on just like, my observational data. It's not like I looked this up, but it seems to me like it's largely focused towards Tesla. There's a lot of Tesla drivers in the Halifax area, and I would not have been in the market for a Tesla. And then tied to the expense of the vehicle as well, the general shortage of vehicles that is affecting the entire automotive industry, but specifically with electric vehicles. If a dealership here at least has an electric vehicle, it's the top trim level and costs tens of thousands of dollars more than I would be interested in spending on a vehicle at this stage in my life.

Lucas: Yeah, for sure. We all hope that we can afford electric cars. If not now, then at our next job. Right? I actually just today came across a Toronto Star article. Now, this is referencing Toronto, Ontario, not Halifax, but they compared average wait times for people who are fully invested in buying an EV. And wait times in even like a city as big and metropolitan as Toronto is, on average across all the companies, it's eleven months right now. Even if you're gung ho, got the money, slap it down on the table, you want an EV, it could be almost a year right now until you're going to be driving one. And like, that's a huge consideration in itself. If you need a new car now or next week, you can't wait almost a year for it, that's a consideration.

But like you said, even when they do have them available, and you've seen those maybe high end, but maybe in your budget prices, then they have the top trim level, so shoot, that's another eight, $9,000, $10,000 I didn't have in my budget. So there goes that. So, availability of any model and availability of the right models, I think it's a pretty widespread phenomenon of this fact. It sounds like you definitely noticed that when you were shopping around.

Ben: Yeah, that wouldn't necessarily I mean, that's definitely not the reason I didn't get an electric vehicle, because that affects, like I was saying, that's affecting the entire automotive industry, the availability issue. For sure. It was absolutely generally the cost of them and generally the charging infrastructure, at least in this part of Canada. I mean, we don't drive a ton, so I think we actually probably could have found a decent use case for them. We're not going to go on any huge road trips, the biggest road you were driving to PEI, which you could easily do on one charge for most of your EVs. But yeah, I would say that those are really the two big reasons that we would not have gotten one.

Lucas: From my limited experience with Atlantic Canada, everything is a lot farther apart from each other. I mean, I’m asking you to speak for your province which probably isn’t fair, but do you think that that might build into the mindset there? That, like, EVs have a set range, and the lack of charging infrastructure mean I could get stranded going to or coming back from whatever far flung place I need to get to?

Ben: I can guarantee you that that’s... I don't know if that's a regional thing, but when I have talked to people here about electric vehicles it's, the first thing they say, it seems like that seems to generally be the concern is because people there are still people here who do have a lot of money. It's just, what if I want to go on a road trip, or really anywhere outside of the HRM and I get stuck at a charging station or without stuck at a charging station for, I don't know, 30 minutes waiting for it to recharge  so that I can make it home. Seems to be the first thing people say to me for sure.

Lucas: Yeah. The Halifax Regional Municipal Area, is that HRM? 

Ben: municipality, yeah. 

Lucas: municipality, right. It's big, but yeah, as you said, there's definitely need to go outside of it sometimes. I personally hear road trips being the deterrent for EVs a lot, going up to the cottage or the Muskokas or Algonquin Park. It’s far enough away that like, you'd have to consider where you're going to charge your car.

Ben: Yeah, you just plan it into your trip. Like what, an EV now gets 4-500 kms of range maybe?

Lucas: Yeah, that's pretty standard.

Ben: It's 25 minutes break every 400-500 km of travel anyways. So I don’t understand when people say that that’s an issue for them.

Lucas: And Even if it was that significant barrier. Even if it was that significant for those few weekends a year, you can rent a car. Maybe that tips the scales away from you choosing EV in the first place but if that was a limiting factor, you could totally rent a car for hose few times, or borrow a friend’s car say, for those times when your EV couldn’t do what you needed it to do.

Lucas: So you said you didn't get that far into the EV purchasing process. Where did you go for your sources of information?

Ben: I do. We have one family friend who has an electric vehicle, so I talked to them about theirs and they're very happy with it. Although they did their one piece of maybe negative feedback is again charging infrastructure related. So that and just the Internet. I don't know if you're like me, but I do 99% of my research just sitting right here in front of my computer.

Lucas: You said you talk to a family friend. I find that is a great way for people, especially people who are very EV hesitant or EV skeptical, to start to overcome that hesitancy of skepticism as talking to other people that have gone through the process, that have had an EV for a little while and have been demystified. I think more than a lot of other ways of getting information, trusted reviews and feedback from people in your life or people that you know personally and have that social connection with. Those are really good ways to overcome those barriers.

Ben: Absolutely. Some of the newer electric vehicles that are coming down the pipeline are already just come out recently, like, have some pretty wild feature sets that we've not ever really seen in a vehicle before. Like, I'm thinking of the new Ford Light F 150 lightning pickup truck that you can use to power your entire house in the event of a power outage for up to five days. That's wild.

Lucas: I'm really excited for those.

Ben: Yeah, that's really cool.

Lucas: I'm not even ever going to buy a truck. I don't think I'm ever going to live a lifestyle where I need to own a truck. But those being available are so exciting to me because I think it's going to reach a segment of the population that might be interested in an EV, but say I need a truck for the towing capacity or for the hauling capacity. If the Ford F 150 or the new Chevy truck are everything they claim to be, which is yet to be seen, they could be a huge game changer, especially if there are, like, you say, blackouts and you can power your house off your car for a day or two. That's such a cool feature and such a unique thing about EVs.

Ben: Yeah. And, well, the big thing there with the trucks is overhauling corporate fleets. I'm just thinking of the standard crew cab white Ford F 150. That seems to just be the car that every company has a fleet of or whatever, like construction companies use.

Lucas: There's a huge opportunity there to get EVs into a lot of places really quickly if fleet managers can learn more about EVs and, like, their capabilities. And I know that people are working on that, and hopefully I can have one of them on the other episode of this podcast, because that's a really cool piece of the puzzle that never gets thought about except by you, apparently.

Lucas: So I want to go back to what you said earlier. We were talking about rebates, and you weren't sure what was available in Nova Scotia right now, rebates at the federal and provincial level at point of sale, are such a good incentive to get people in cars. And I know the federal ones have gotten a lot of media attention, but the provincial ones have gotten a lot less, and you have to go looking for information. So I look it up right now. And currently there's a $3,000 provincial rebate for new fully electric vehicles. On top of that, there is an additional $5,000 federal rebate for electric vehicles, assuming they fit within a few parameters, like a maximum ceiling price. So that is $8,000 off the MSRP, which, when you're buying a car, that's pretty significant. Not enough to change everyone's mind or calculations, I think, but definitely enough to change some people's mind. And there's been a lot of debate back and forth about whether or not that money spent by the government is being well spent when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions, and it's some good questions to be asked there. But I think what it misses is this whole idea of getting the ball rolling. And once you get EVs to a high enough point of market saturation, that the ball is just going to keep rolling by itself after a while. So you bought a new car last year, you're set for a little while. Was this a lease or was the purchase this time?

Ben: Yeah, it's a lease. So it will be over in four years. And I think at that point it will certainly, at the very least, it'll be hybrid time. I'm not sure if it will be fully EV time for me yet at that point, but headed in the right direction for sure. I don't know, a lot can happen in the next three years. 

Lucas: Yeah, a lot can happen in three years, and hopefully a lot of good stuff happens. Its kind of great that you lease a car because you can get yourself a new one sooner than if you’d bought one. Which, in terms of, you know, how fast we can get you inside of an EV that makes sense for you, all the better.  

Ben: Yeah. I should probably think about it slightly differently. I definitely don't think of my vehicle as an asset. I think of my vehicle as a service, which is probably the right mindset to have if you're going to be thinking about an electric vehicle. Right. They're typically more capital intensive, but if you're not thinking about your vehicle as an asset, then that might even make sense.

Lucas: That's really interesting. We often think about cars as assets, mainly because we're asked about them for financial statements and whatnot, but yeah, they're useful because they provide a service, not because we're banking our money in them. So that's a good thought. I'd never consider that before. So, when it comes time to trade in your Subaru, what's going to have to be different for you to make a different decision?

Ben: More availability of EVs in a lower price range.

Lucas: Price, competitive and availability makes sense. And one of the biggest ways for people to overcome their trepidations or their worries about EVs is to get them inside of one. Get them to drive one, even if it's exactly the one you want. You can get a feel for what it's like to drive an EV and see that it's not so scary as you think. It's quieter than you think. Maybe it's more technologically advanced than you think. Like you seen, inside of a Tesla? It's like a computer in there. It's amazing the kind of electronics.

Ben: And I gotta say, man, there's some electric vehicles that I find, There's definitely an electric vehicle vibe in terms of the design language of the car and what they're trying to put in in terms of the feature set. They do not appeal to me at all. Like, everything on one screen, like the Tesla, for instance, where it's just like all of your controls are through a screen. It's like predicting whether you want to reverse or go forward. It just seems like that would drive me insane as a driver.

Lucas: That's so interesting, the idea that the kind of sexy new technology of EVs could be a downside to adoption because they are a little too far outside of people's comfort zone.

Ben: I think that's a big thing for a lot of people.

Lucas: Yes, but I mean, even on a larger scale. Talking about car design in general, I have a favorite kind of pen because of the way that it's designed. People have really big preferences about the way things are designed that they use. And I'm guessing that maybe for some small segment of the population, they might come to an EV that they thought they'd like and go, this has climate benefits, this drives really well, but I don't like how the inside is laid out, and that's enough for detriment for me to not buy this car.

Ben: I'm definitely the kind of person where that would be a reason for me to not buy that car. If we're three years from now and I'm getting the next vehicle that I need to get, and gas is $7 a liter or something like that, then I can probably kick my preferences to the curve. But let's say that the capital cost of the vehicle was the same. If it was, like, between a Tesla and even the car that I have, the supercross trick that I have, I don't think I would prefer to drive a Tesla.

Lucas: So there's more to it than just price, it seems like.

Ben: Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. And we're talking about people's taste preferences.

Lucas: So taste preferences, that's a really interesting thing to talk about. There's actually been a lot of studies done, a lot more than I would have expected on consumer perceptions of themselves in relation to the vehicle that they drive. There are different facets that we apply to ourselves when we're driving an EV versus when we're driving a gas-powered car that I think are a little beneath the surface that you might think about during your decision, but you wouldn't actively write down and say, a pros and cons list. But I think it's really influential, those quiet, unspoken things like how would I perceive myself or how would others perceive me? Am I the kind of person that is interested enough in the environment or technology to do this?

Ben: I think by just, like watching the industry right now and, like, where it's gone, where it's headed, and, like, seeing the cars that are on the street, even just here, but also in bigger cities. I was recently in Boston, or I've been to Montreal fairly recently as well. That's a huge factor, for sure. That might even be the biggest factor in, like, most people deciding what vehicle they buy. You know, I'd like to think that I would take a somewhat pragmatic view towards selecting a new vehicle with, like, a criteria spreadsheet with scores, and I actually, like, pay attention to it. But the truth is that that's not the case. Right. When you buy a vehicle, you buy a lot of things. You're kind of attracted to what you're attracted to and what it says about who you are. That's Madmen 101, right?

Lucas: The car we drive can absolutely be a method through which we present ourselves to the world.

Ben: I think that now we're getting to the point with electric vehicles where it's not necessarily tied to an environmentalist image. A lot of automotive manufacturers are getting into the space now. Like, we were talking earlier about Ford's, like, there's pickup trucks now, which aren't typically not environmentalist vehicles, vehicles that you associate with environmentalism. But now, I don't know, at least speaking personally, the most attractive electric vehicles, if money was no object, would be the pickup trucks that are available. They have the best the coolest feature sets, and typically would seem like the best performance. All of this is anecdotal, I guess, but when I see something like, there's a couple of people here that have those electric Ford F-150, when I see them driving around, it's like, man, that person's cool.

Lucas: That's cool.

Ben: Yeah, it's not like, oh, yeah, Mr. Environmental over here. Which is not how I feel about people driving Teslas, which are definitely the most common electric vehicle. But that certainly was the vibe around a Prius, right? Like, when you see someone driving around a prius, it's just like, buddy, you're giving up a lot there just to, like, look like an environmentalist, aren't you?

Lucas: There's a lot of studies about this. Like I said, but those were conducted 8,9,10 years ago when sort of maybe Prius was more of the default electric car, hybrid car that you would see. And there's also a perception that you take a hit to, say, driving performance, to have a car that's better with the environment. But since, you know, Tesla's rise to supremacy in the EV market, maybe that alone is enough to switch the idea of having an EV or at least having a Tesla from an environmental status symbol to a regular old economic status symbol.

Ben: Yeah, it's interesting that the research about the consumer mindset around buying an electric vehicle, you were saying it's like it says this about that person, but it's likely outdated research at this point. I'd be interested to see what more recent or more updated research around that would point to.

Lucas: Yeah, but ten years on, this market has moved very quickly, like, from market penetration of less than 1%, say, in 2010 or so, to a ban on any other kind of car 25 years later. That's ridiculous. And so I think a lot of those perceptions and mindsets and maybe selling techniques or self-perceptions, all those things we've talked about, they've probably changed a lot over that last ten years. And I wanted to talk about that research and then interview experts about it. So I get a sense for whether or not that's still true, and if their expert opinion is that those studies from ten years ago still hold up today.

Ben: It seems to me that in the short term, and this is moving fast enough, that who knows what will happen? But it seems to me that in the short term, the solution is maybe more so hybrid vehicles because they kind of bridge the gap, they're much more efficient, but they quell the concerns that people might have around the infrastructure that's associated with electric vehicles.

Lucas: The range anxiety.

Ben: Exactly.

Lucas: Yeah. But I think for a lot of people you're right. Having an EV is still kind of scary. But having a car that is more environmentally friendly and would cost you less on gas but still has that kind of failsafe of the engine and car type that you're used to built into it might be what some people need to get where they need to go. It's like the awkward teenage years of vehicle electrification. It's funny, we were talking earlier about the top perceived disincentives that you found personally, and you think that might be endemic to Atlantic Canada when you're talking to friends about this. And there is a study done by Natural Resource Canada in 2018 that lists kind of all the exact same things. At the top is lack of incentives and high purchase price. And then there is lack of consumer and policymaker awareness around lack of education for zero emission vehicles. And then below that there is lack of public charging infrastructure, which contributes to range anxiety. And then below that, there's lack of availability in dealerships. Like all the things that we talked about. Natural Resources Canada can back us up on all of those. One last question for you. After you've conducted your research, made your decision. Do you still have any questions about owning an EV or an EV's effect on the environment of the economy or anything else that's like electric vehicle related that you're curious about?

Ben: It would seem to me that the best way a government can push this type of initiative forward would be doing something similar like we're seeing in California, New York, right. Where it's like, by 2035, you shall not be selling any new internal combustion engine vehicles. Are you aware if there's any talk of that in Canada? Or is that maybe not the best thing to do because that will force companies to create cost competitive electric vehicles.

Lucas: Yeah, so actually Canada has made the same pledge that New York and California has the exact same year too, by 2035. Now, at this point, that has not been written into regulation and law. But even the fact that we are making that declaration, I think is a strong signal to automakers, like you said, that they're going to have to step up their game.

Ben: Yeah, that's soon, and that's 13 years from now.

Lucas: Yeah, it feels really far away. But then you think about shifting a whole industry's production, and it feels really close all of a sudden.

Ben: Feels really far away. But also, 2009 was only 13 years ago.

Lucas: When you put it like that… Yeah, because when I'm doing this podcast, I try to take off my environmentalist hat and put on my academic hat. I know I cannot get rid of all of my biases, but I want to put as many of them aside as possible for doing this. And so part of me, the environmentalist part of me thinks, you know, 2035 still feels too late. We should make it 2030. Let's get this ball rolling. But the other part of me says that's going to create, you know, more problems than solutions. And even though this is taking a little longer than maybe you'd like, it probably will work out better in the long run. 

Well, thanks so much for your time, Ben. I really appreciate you taking an hour out of your day and talking to me about the thought process you went through before buying a new car.

Ben: My pleasure.

Lucas: Great to have you on, Ben.

Ben’s question got me thinking. The federal government has made a lot of moves in the past couple of years introducing EV-friendly policies and I think it would be a good idea to give a summary of the important ones. A future episode will be dedicated to exploring and critiquing federal policies, as well as provincial programs, but for now, here’s the skinny on federal EV action to date. 

As I mentioned in the interview, the federal government has pledged to introduce a moratorium on the sale of conventional vehicles by 2035. After 2035, all new vehicles sold in Canada must be zero-emissions vehicles. The pledge puts Canada in line with pledges made by Portugal, Italy, and Chile among others. The announcement also puts Canada in line with the recommendations in a recent report by the International Energy Agency on achieving net zero by 2050. To guide progress on the phase-out, the government has set national interim sales targets for EVs of at least 20% by 2026, and 60% by 2030.

I also mentioned in the interview the incentives offered by the federal government. To meet those interim targets and convince consumers to buy electric, the federal government is offering purchase rebates on new qualifying vehicles - $2,500 for PHEVs, and $5,000 for EVs. The rebate program, officially called the Incentive for Zero Emissions Vehicles or iZEV, will run until 2025 or until the funding has been exhausted. In total, over 2 billion dollars has been allocated to the iZEV program since it launched in early 2019. Over 136,000 Canadians have taken advantage of the program to date. These federal rebates can be combined with provincial rebates and offer some real cost savings for those looking to buy a new vehicle. 

All these new EVs are going to need places to charge. I strongly believe we will reach a point where most drivers can charge their cars at home, but that isn’t the reality right now. In anticipation of this, the Trudeau government launched the Zero Emissions Vehicle Infrastructure Program, or ZEVIP, to subsidize the installation of publicly accessible charging stations. The $680 million program will subsidize up to 50% of the costs for successful applicants to install EV chargers in locations such as libraries, arenas, and restaurants, as well as on public streets, in apartment and condominium parking lots, and at workplaces. To date, the program has subsidized over 8,500 EV chargers, and through recent investments, is working toward an objective of 50,000 by 2027.  

While there are more EV-related initiatives being championed by the federal government, the 2035 moratorium on conventional vehicles, the purchasing incentives, and the infrastructure program are the three that are likely to affect your life if you’re an EV-curious consumer. I’ll touch on the others in a future episode, along with provincial action on EVs.

Thank you for joining me for this first episode of Sparking the Transition. I hope it has given you an understanding of EV basics, and why an EV might be right for you. I’ve included some resources in the show notes if you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, including a fully cited transcript. 

In the next episode, I’ll talk about common EV misconceptions, including the cost of ownership, and driving distance, among others. We’ll dive into the mind of a consumer and look at what really impacts purchasing decisions, and you’ll hear my conversation with the CEO of Plug and Drive, Cara Clairman, on what it takes to change someone’s mind, the biggest challenges facing EVs right now, and why she’s excited for the future. Over the coming episodes, I’ll be bringing you more of this content and digging deep into the rural/urban divide, the negative impacts of EVs, and what policy approaches yield the best results.

I want to leave you with a challenge. I believe the best way to spark change is through connection and emotion. So, in the interest of spreading awareness on EVs, I challenge you to ask one person you know, it could be a coworker, a friend, a family member, or someone you meet at a party, whether they’ve thought about buying an EV. Don’t try to convince them, just be curious. I’ll talk to you real soon. Thanks for helping me Spark the Transition.