EVs become more noticeable on Metro Vancouver commuter routes

From negligible numbers in 2017, e-commuters in the suburbs of Surrey, Langley, Coquitlam and Abbotsford surged into the thousands by last year.

Data analyst Eric Hedekar works mostly from a home office in Port Moody but doesn’t hesitate to hop in the family’s Hyundai IONIQ 5 all-electric SUV when he needs to, even for longer trips out to a University of B.C. location.

“At most, we’re seeing, even out to UBC and back, it’s close to only 10 per cent of battery usage,” Hedekar said. “We really don’t find driving around the city to be where we need to worry about charging at all.”

Hedekar and his wife Jacqueline Nichols, an electrical engineer, put about 360 km a week on their IONIQ 5 on average, a bit intermittently, but are joining a noticeably increasing number of EV owners using their cars to make longer commutes, according to figures from ICBC.

As of 2021, the latest figures ICBC has available, the insurance agency counted 4,078 passenger EVs insured for commutes longer than 15 km in just the suburbs of Surrey, Coquitlam, Langley and Abbotsford, up from just 105 as of 2017.

That is about 30 per cent of the 13,483 EVs ICBC licensed in those municipalities in 2021, out of B.C.’s overall EV passenger fleet of 59,000 as of 2021, according to ICBC. It remains a small but growing component of B.C.’s automobile population of 2.7 million vehicles.

Federal and provincial government rebates that add up to $8,000 for moderate-income buyers and the increasing availability of fast-charging stations have helped demand along, but for Hedekar and Nichols, the operating costs and convenience really pencilled out in January with the purchase of their now beloved IONIQ 5.

“It was the first (EV) that came along that ticked enough boxes,” Hedekar said. Those boxes include fast charging for the family trips they make to 100 Mile House every three weeks and a cost, with rebates factored, that will have a payback within 80,000 to 100,000 km.

On energy alone, Hedekar estimates city driving costs them about $1.96 for every 100 km, depending on where they charge up.

Compare that to an efficient internal combustion car that uses six litres of gas for every 100 km. That’s about $9.83 at the 163.9 cents a litre at Vancouver gas stations Tuesday, which is down from the $14.40 it would have cost when gas was 239.9 a litre in September.

B.C.’s EV fleet may still only be two per cent of cars on the road, but EV sales represented 14 per cent of new cars sold in the first half of 2022, said Blair Qualley, CEO of the New Car Dealers Association of B.C., which administers B.C.’s zero emission vehicle rebate program.

“B.C. has been swinging above its weight, I think, for some time on the whole EV front,” Qualley said, between being an early adopter with rebates and the spending governments have made installing charging infrastructure.

Compared with just a few different EV models available in the market a decade ago, Qualley said most manufacturers have vehicles for consumers to choose from and more consumers had exposure to EVs.

“People started to see them on the road and started to hear conversations about charging stations at shopping malls, restaurants, on the highways at rest stops, even gas stations,” Qualley said. “I think it’s just been all of those things, just this long, slow progression that’s adding up.”

However, the outright small number of electric vehicles available has always been the limiting factor in the size of B.C.’s EV fleet, according to EV consultant John Stonier, who is also past president of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association.

“The only reason there’s not more cars on the road today is because of supply-chain issues,” Stonier said. He said that has always been the case and not just now with shortages of microchips that have slowed the production of all automobiles.

“They’re their own problem, because there’s never any (EV) inventory on the lot, because (they sell) so fast,” Stonier said, and it has always been long-distance commuters who have driven a lot of that demand.

One long-range commuter Stonier knows bought a Nissan Leaf in 2015 for a 250 km round-trip commute from Vancouver to Chilliwack, where she had access to charging during the day, and back.

Now, however, vehicle ranges of 350 km a charge are pretty standard and what consumers want for the perceived need for long road trips, although the average driver only travels about 30 km a day, Stonier said.

depenner@postmedia.com

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