Up a road without a charger: One EV driver’s pitch for better plug-in access

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Your gas gauge tells you it’s time to get fuel. If you’re like most drivers, you don’t waste time getting to a gas station to fill up.

But what if your home is your fueling station, it takes hours to get your vehicle juiced again and you’re suddenly cut off from home?

Bradley Clift said roadwork on his St. Thomas street meant he couldn’t access his driveway for about a week and a half, leaving him unable to recharge his electric vehicle at home and having to park elsewhere.

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In the fallout, the 27-year-old said he believes the city should provide recharging alternatives for drivers like himself who can’t juice up their vehicles at home if construction cuts them off.

Does he have a point?

Maintenance and upgrades are necessary to keep road networks and everything that’s running beneath and alongside them in shape. And while much of that happens while still allowing local or through traffic, that’s not always the case. But the world is also moving to an electric vehicle future in which many more drivers, like Clift, will be getting around in vehicles powered by electric batteries – not gasoline.

“I kind of thought that if somebody was in a similar situation – where they didn’t have access to a charger for five days – it would be nice if the city was to give some amount of money” to use public charging stations instead, Clift said.

Clift wrote to city council, suggesting EV owners who can’t access their chargers due to road construction be given a form of compensation, such as credits to use public charging stations.

Public charging stations are more costly to use than charging up at home, he wrote. He costed out the difference at “roughly $2.09 to add 100 kilometres of charge” from home, compared to “about $6 to $15” – depending on which station is used – at a public station.

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Add in the time and distance to get to and from an alternate charging station, and the hours of dead time while the vehicle is charging, and the cost and inconvenience rises, says Clift, who lives about 1.5 km from the nearest public charging station.

“Obviously, the concern is I’m now leaving my car unattended (at a charging station) for four to five hours,” said Clift, who drives about 100 km to get to college classes from his home.

“The other option is, I sit in it for four to five hours. But then I’m basically wasting several hours.”

St. Thomas, ironically, will soon be home to the largest electric vehicle battery plant on the continent, with auto giant Volkswagen building a $7-billion factory there.

In his letter to council, Clift wrote that the coming factory, expected to open in 2027 and employ about 3,000 workers, is one reason “the city should be ahead of the curve on electric vehicle policy.”

As EVs become more common, St. Thomas may need to consider alternatives during roadwork for inconvenienced residents who plug their vehicles in at home, city engineer Kevin De Leebeeck acknowledged.

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Of the suggestion the city provide credits to such drivers, he said “that’s something that can be considered, maybe, in the future.”

How far an EV can go before it needs to be recharged depends on factors such as the vehicle make and model, road conditions and whether it’s highway driving or city driving.

EV drivers with shorter commutes require less plug-in frequency. Clift said being able to charge up at home can make the difference between a dead battery and arriving at his destination, especially if he can’t access a charger at school. He said his battery died several times during the roadwork on his street.

St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston, at a city council meeting, said he’d spoken to Clift and that he’d “like to ensure we’re putting his thoughts into our future construction work.”

An official with an umbrella group for electricity distributors in Ontario said he doesn’t foresee problems such as Clift encountered becoming widespread, because the charging network to support EVs will grow with demand.

“I think we know that EV charger supplies are growing around Ontario – in London, communities across Ontario – so I think this is going to become less prevalent,” said Mike Chopowick of the Electricity Distributors Association.

“This is, you know, rapidly expanding in terms of market adoption, and that’s the vehicles – and so will the chargers,” he said.

bwilliams@postmedia.com
@BrianWatLFPress
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada

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