jordenf v2.0

*UPDATE* – On July 9th, 2009 Vancouver City Council decided unanimously for electric car charging stations to be installed in all new developments.  What was a little shocking is they actually doubled the amount from 10% of all parking stalls to 20%.  See the CBC story here.

Read my original post below.

So I was reading an interesting article this morning in the Vancouver Sun by Joanne Lee-Young on electric car chargers in Vancouver.  Apparently Vancouver council is trying to make it mandatory for new residential condo developments to have 10 percent of their parking spots include electrical outlets for vehicles.  A neat concept that would put Vancouver ahead of the rest of Canada in this step forward to create a greener city.

So basically how it would work is each new condo building constructed would have to include a power charging kiosk for 10 percent of the parking stalls.  Mayor Gregor Robertson says that the city of Vancouver would also install public charging kiosks in some of their EasyPark lots and eventually have a few on-street stations as well.

The current problem is that the developer’s representative UDI (Urban Development Institute) is saying that 5 percent of the parking stalls would be more reasonable than 10 because currently at the time of this blog their are fewer than 10 EV – Electric Vehicle’s in the city… also their is concern over BC Hydro being able to supply the extra energy to these stations.   But I guess Vancouver council’s thinking is that the more spots available for these cars the easier it will be to get around in one, which will encourage people to purchase them when they do become available in Canada in the near future.  Because lets be honest, no one is going to buy a car if they cant power it up easily.

i MiEV - 120 km on a single charge costing about $2-$4

The City of Vancouver and BC Hydro signed an agreement with Mitsubishi a few months back agreeing to use its new i MiEV electric vehicle as test run models for their fleet.  But even with the City of Vancouver and BC Hydro cruising around in these EV’s it hardly seems necessary to have 10 percent of parking stalls in condo developments “power ready” for these vehicles.  But that being said the times are changing and according to Don Chander, the past president of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association, there are 18 major automakers currently developing EV’s, so the need for 10 percent of parking stalls to have charging stations may be here before we know it.

Cheers!

jordenf

If you enjoyed this post and are interested in electric and green transportation you may want to check out my post on e-bikes or on Nissan’s plan to have a wireless rechargeable car.