The Province of Ontario announced its coming network of electric vehicle charging stations last week and Huntsville is among the planned locations. The network of 500 charging stations at more than 250 locations across the province will be in service by March 31, 2017.
The planned Huntsville location is at the Tim Hortons on Highway 60. The Level 3 charging station to be installed will charge a vehicle to 80-90 per cent in under an hour. The other stations closest to Huntsville are planned for Burk’s Falls and Gravenhurst.
In a release, the province said, “The $20-million investment under Ontario’s Green Investment Fund will expand charging infrastructure across the province and will help address “range anxiety,” a common concern of consumers regarding the distance electric vehicles can travel compared to traditional vehicles. Building a more robust network of public chargers across Ontario allows electric vehicle owners to plan longer trips knowing that charging stations are as readily available as gas stations. With the new network of stations, electric vehicle drivers will be able to travel confidently from Windsor to Ottawa or from Toronto to North Bay and within and around major urban centres.”
Read Doppler’s previous stories on electric vehicle chargers here:
No electric vehicle charging stations for Huntsville…yet
Electric vehicle owners could soon get a charge out of Huntsville
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You’re right, it’s possible that the energy for electric vehicles may not come from an emissions free source. The great thing about EVs is that they are energy agnostic. They have the potential to be powered purely by solar or wind and as our power generation shifts towards these methods and away from the fossil fuels the cars will be ready. The internal combustion engine doesn’t have this luxury.
Regarding the connectors as is common with new technologies, electric vehicle makers didn’t agree on which standard is best. Although in the U.S. CHAdeMO makes up nearly three quarters of the existing quick charge infrastructure versus the CCS standard.
A quick look at the map on Plugshare.com and it appears that a good number of Level 3 stations offer both connections. I imagine all of these standards will likely coexist indefinitely.
Tesla on the other had does use a proprietary design. They are unique in that owners have the ability to adapt to just about every other type of electrical source. But honesty, this probably doesn’t even concern people who drive a Tesla. Their range is so great and with their ever growing Supercharger network for long range travel I don’t see this being as big of an issue. They are in a league of their own.
I hope this helps!
Either way I am ecstatic that this is happening here in Huntsville.
– Future EV owner.
Build it and they will come. With the democratization/affordability of long-range electric vehicles fully underway (I’m referring to the Tesla Model 3 in particular), I think it’s forward thinking of the town to start building the infrastructure required to power the future. We should collectively applaud the people involved with making this happen at such an opportune time!
Electric may reduce emissions but nobody has bothered, least of all the government, to demonstrate that this is indeed going to be the case here when the overall situation is considered.
For example, where is the energy actually coming from for these stations? Is it from an emission free source?
Another consideration that is not touched on, one that I am waiting to hear explained is how does the electric car owner pay for a charge? I assume these stations are to include metering and credit card payment facilities as part of the package (they have to do this somehow!)
What does the business on who’s land the station is placed have to contribute? The car occupants will be “on this site” for at least an hour as the car charges so they will need a place to go and something to do. Will the land owner (the mall in this case) be contributing to the cost of the station?
Last question for this comment is why in God’s name are we looking at multiple and incompatible charging hook ups at this stage of the game? Here we are spending a fair bit of government money, money the government not only is taking from ALL the tax payers (not just electric car owners) and actually money the government does not even have and spending it on a charging system that cannot even service ALL the vehicles it is aimed at because the same government has not ensured that all vehicles effectively “have the same type of plug?!!”
Spare me! a 5th grader could figure this out better!
Please send some reporters to get answers here… it is the media’s duty to get these answers out there for discussion, not just parrot a few parts of the data. We need and deserve the “whole picture” on this matter.
It says this is going to be a Level 3 station and those have the ability to charge from zero to 80% capacity in about a half hour. Of course this can vary wildly depending on the current state of charge and size of battery pack.
Hopefully it’s the CHAdeMO type connector as I would guess there are slightly more cars (Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Kia Soul EV) on the road that can take advantage of it over the SAE Combo (BMW i3, Chevy Spark, Volkswagen eGolf) connector.
Tesla’s can also take advantage of CHAdeMO stations with the use of an adaptor, but it looks like Huntsville is getting a dedicated Supercharger with possibly 8 stalls for them in the mall parking lot.
The article says an hour to charge 80-90%. I guess you missed that
$20 million dollars all so less than 1% of the population can travel 500km. Now this must be a Justin Trudeau waste of our tax dollars.
How many outlets, and how many hours? It’s not like pulling up to the pump, and five minutes later, you’re on your way. What a boondoggle!