EV Readiness Dashboard to track Canadian progress to 2035 EV targets
July 04, 2022
At a virtual news conference that took place on Friday, June 24, Huw Williams, Director of Public Affairs at CADA, was joined by Brian Kingston, President and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturing Association, and David Adams, President and CEO of the Global Automakers of Canada, to talk about the launch of the EV Readiness Dashboard, a part of the Road to 2035 campaign.
“The EV Readiness Dashboard will help consumers, the industry, and all of Canada track our progress on the important adoption of EVs,” said Williams. “Consumers need certainty that they can, number one, afford these vehicles, and number two, that they will have a place to charge these vehicles where they live, work and play.”
The dashboard tracks how government incentives stack up across the country, as well as the number of EV charging stations currently available per EV on the road. CADA is joined by CVMA and GAC in their position that incentive support and charging infrastructure for Canadians are the keys to EV adoption and governments need to do more. The dashboard aims to “illustrate the incentive and charging gaps that need to be addressed if EV adoption is to keep pace with climate change targets.”
“The objective is to provide guidance to both policy-makers and Canadians around some of the gaps that exist around EV charging and incentives,” said Kingston.
“Hopefully this will inform the government about where we need to direct future investments to get Canada to the ZEV sales targets.”
The auto sector and CADA is calling on governments across Canada to be “more ambitious and accountable to Canadians on the availability of sufficient consumer incentives to help offset the higher cost of EVs and accessible EV charging infrastructure to make EV driving practical for all Canadians, whether they live in apartments with limited charging options or in rural areas with longer highway commutes.”
A continuing supply shortage is also going to continue to be a challenge, said Adams. “It’s going to take time, even without the current supply issues, to build out the facilities, battery plants and other production requirements of electric vehicles,” he said. “As an industry, we are fully committed to decarbonization. But it will take time for supply to meet the demand.”