Huntsville Place Mall could soon be one of the province’s newest locations for electric vehicles to charge up. In December, the Ministry of Transportation announced $20 million in funding to build a network of electric vehicle charging stations across the province and the Mall’s ownership group – Effort Trust – was among the applicants. As of today (April 11), they hadn’t received news but an announcement is expected sometime this month.
The program – Electric Vehicle Chargers Ontario (EVCO) – would provide up to 100 per cent of the capital costs for the purchase and installation of eligible chargers, but not maintenance or operation.
The Town of Huntsville would also like to install electric vehicle chargers on municipal land. At the March 30 General Committee meeting, Councillors approved a report which would enable Town staff to apply for future funding for the charging stations. Recommended locations are the Canada Summit Centre and the Minerva Street parking lot.
If funding is received, the Town could either retain full ownership of the stations and fund their maintenance and operations via a pay-per-use fee, or they could work with a partner who would cover those costs while the Town supplies the space for the charging station.
The full cost of an electric vehicle charging station, including equipment and installation, runs between $50,000 to $100,000 depending on the location and type of charger, said Rebecca Francis, the Town’s Sustainability Coordinator. One station typically charges two vehicles at a time, with one plug being a Level 3 Direct Current Fast Charger (DCFC) which will charge a vehicle to 80-90 per cent in under an hour, and the other plug a slower Level 2 charger.
“The idea is that you can run in, grab your groceries or shop downtown and then you are good to go,” said Francis. “Huntsville is a great place for this because it’s at end of (the car’s) range so they could stop here and then be ready to go to the cottage fully topped up.” The only other station between here and Toronto currently is in Barrie.
Electric vehicle owners generally pay either a flat fee or a metered fee for the service, often via an app on a smartphone. In some programs, charging is free thanks to sponsorships with utility companies.
“Electric vehicles are only going to become more popular,” said Francis. “The province has incentives for purchasing these vehicles. If the Mall is successful in receiving funding, it’s fantastic that we’ll have an EV charging station in Huntsville whether it’s on municipal lands or not. It’s a great location.”
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We have owned a Chevy Volt since November of 2014. Driven almost 60,000 km and of that 24,000 were on gas through the generator. 36,000 km on electricity either 110 volts or 240 volts. Heat works great! If you would like to look a one, there is a 2017 at Edmonds, check it out! It has an even longer range. I applaud the Town of Huntsville for their forward thinking!
Whatever type of charging station it is the user has to be charged for the energy used. Sort of like a card lock gas bar, the electric car owner would need to swipe their credit card and enter their password, then they could hook up and get a charge, either “slow” or “fast”. Anything else is just a joke as providing this service “for free” would be akin to letting me siphon your gas tank when I needed gas and I’m pretty sure you would consider that to be a theft.
I can’t fathom out the cost for a charging station.
Essentially a slow charge station is nothing more than an outdoor outlet with some kind of access control to control users and charge the necessary fee. 50 to 150 thousand? you have to be kidding. Find a better way, much cheaper, or the electric car scenario is simply unworkable!
One vision I have for this would be to take say one aisle of parking in the mall lot. Put in metered outlets for each parking space. This aisle would be for electric cars and those who used it with a non-electric car would be fined similar to a disabled parking spot now. The electric car owner has to look after carrying a suitable cable in their car so that they can hook up to the outlet and their car. All the mall provides is the outlet, card slot charge system and necessary metering to know what to charge. If mass produced this box, with all this stuff in it, should not cost more than a few hundred dollars at most and any business anywhere could install one wherever they currently have a 20 A outdoor outlet.
If you work out a system like this the electric car might move from an expensive curiosity to a useful vehicle.
And I am guessing these are probably summer use only stations..I have yet to hear any real details on winter operations and how that affects their mileage, how do you “defrost” an electric car? The amount of energy that has to go into heat must cut your available range by quite a bit…the heating now is just a desirable side effect to internal combustion engines.
And the extended darkness would also limit your range again with lights etc.
The cars I have seen so far only have a range of about 160km. Can an electric car make it to muskoka?
Th technology will probably catch up, but has there been drivers in town asking for charging stations?
Do we need these things right away? Like we needed a university building? An Olympic sized rink?
I’m definitely in favour of EV charging stations in Huntsville. That said, the logistics must be well thought out prior to any installation.
1) Are the units metered (in minutes), so that one may park in line and know when to return for a “fill up”?
2) For locations remote from shopping, e.g. the Summit Centre, will free transportation be provided to the desired shopping location?
3) Will such transportation be accessible? To my knowledge, there are no accessible taxis in town, so a small shuttle bus would be required.
4) With parking at a premium in Huntsville, why choose the two busiest parking lots in town as locations? With the restrictions on putative clients for the LCBO mall, there would certainly be far less disruption to traffic patterns there. Also, given the lessee problems at the University of Waterloo building, their parking lot would be a superior location. As suggested, most EV station usage would be in daytime hours, and would not interfere with the very occasional events at the Waterloo building (which tend to be either all day or evening).
5) Why have a faster and a slower charging station? If the slower one is only to allow for longer shopping sessions, then it’s a short-sighted decision with the number of electric cars on the horizon. If, however, it’s a safety issue with, perhaps, the amount of centralized power a concern, then the suggested configuration must certainly be adopted