Ottawa, Ontario — Representatives from several automotive lobby groups, including the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA), were on Parliament Hill this week where they hosted a press conference voicing their concerns with the federal government’s handling of the zero-emission vehicle plan.
Association spokesperson Huw Williams said Tuesday that they are calling for “urgent action” on the part of the federal government to address what they feel to be an ineffective rollout of Canada’s EV charging infrastructure.
Williams said that the sparseness and often cited unreliability of public charging stations damages the certainty Canadians are accustomed to having when making a significant investment, like the purchase of a vehicle.
“For charging, that means Canadians must be able to charge these vehicles where they work, live and play; not relying solely on the public charging infrastructure, or having to add 30 to 45 minutes to their daily commute,” he said.
The association released to its members Tuesday a timeline depicting the progress of the federal government’s goal of 100 percent EV sales by 2035.
President and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association (CVMA) Brian Kingston says the timeline shows that “Canada is not on track to support the necessary charging infrastructure to support widespread ZEV adoption.
“It shows that the growth in zero-emission vehicle sales, and the on-road fleet, to achieve the targets established by government require a massive rollout of charging infrastructure.”
As of 2024, there were 124,000 EVs registered in Canada, according to Kingston.
“That figure needs to grow to 400,000 in 2026, 1.2 million in 2030 and two million by 2035. With those growth rates, we will have 12.4 million zero-emission vehicles on Canada’s roads in the next 12 years. This simply cannot be achieved without a massive rollout of charging infrastructure,” said Kingston.
Based on his extrapolation of CADA’s data, Kingston says he lacks confidence in the government’s current pace.
“There were 16,000 public EV charging ports available to Canadians last May; one year later, there are 6,000 more ports. At that pace of build-out, it will take 30 years to achieve the 195,000 target that the government has set; 40 years to get to 400,000 chargers,” he said.
“Canada’s zero-emission vehicle charging network will be ready for Canadians in 2100.”
