While I see the emotional appeal, I don't think that EVs are the future on any significant level. Most people only use their cars for routine trips between home, work, and a few popular places for shopping and entertainment. Two of the four are completely centralized and the other two are generally focused into notable clusters. This creates nothing but choke points for cars, and commute time data shows just how bad it is.

Toronto had an average commute time of 84 minutes of 2019. One way. I use transit between bus, subway, streetcar, then walk, and still manage under an hour despite going halfway across the city to work, with 5-10 minute wait times between each transfer. That time doubles the moment I had to use a shuttle bus because that has to go through one of the massive choke points in Toronto.

What we need is greater capacity, more extensive, more reliable, and more comfortable transit solutions so we can just stop making it take 10 minutes to go 3 blocks during rush hour. So people can go even long distances quickly and comfortably when their jobs require it.

EV charging points are important, but only in strategically placed locations like on highway rest stops, as if you still insist on using an EV for commuting, you can just charge at home overnight as 99% of drivers would use less than 10% of their car's charge a day. It's only for vacations that fast charging stations would actually be used.

Also we need to properly promote remote work. Commutes suck especially bad when you're doing a job you know you could be doing from home instead of wasting 20% of the day just getting to the office.

I’m not against EVs, but let’s not forget that they are still expensive and inefficient car infrastructure. EVs won’t do anything about congestion on the 401, or suburban sprawl causing the housing crisis.

Cars will always exist, but what we really need is more public transportation. It’s a no brainer to have a high speed train from London to Quebec City. And electric bikes — yes biking in winter is fine, people all over the world do it, Canadians used to do it before cars took over. You just need good bike infrastructure and dedicated snow removal for bikes.

The other issue is where they are. Two thousand chargers in Montreal do you no good if you're on the Transcananda out near Longlac, Ont., in that area where there's no cell phone coverage.

If EVs are a "key part" of Canada's climate strategy, we are all seriously fucked.

This is a bad analysis. Chargers per car is only one way to look at it. What about chargers per capita, chargers per road km, chargers person per land area, etc... oh? In all of those metrics Canadian provinces are leaders? You don't say.

https://public.tableau.com/views/EVFastChargingPlugStandards/RegionrankingsforDCChargers

There is something wrong with the data.

It claims only 500 chargers for all of Quebec, but Montréal alone has 2053 chargers.

I work in this industry. The number of chargers is set to explode in the next 2 years.

So, a few things...

Most homes that I've been in have electricity. If you have a wall socket, you have a car charger. You might not be doing 500km every day, but you'll be charging.

Second, most underground parking spots can have a 15A, 20A, or 50A plugs installed. My office has underground parking, and every stall has a 120V 15A plug, included in the monthly cost of parking... PLUS it has 10 L2 chargers available, which aren't available to the general public. This article probably only includes public infrastructure, but there is a metric fuckload of private infrastructure as well.

Last, I've done trips from Montreal to Havre St Pierre (via Lac St. Jean!) and on a different trip, to Gaspé. The charging network is already very, very good. Even places without cell coverage have MULTIPLE public overnight chargers -- I was astounded that Saint Michael du Squatec had three publicly available chargers, plus a campground that will let you plug into a 50A socket for free. On both trips (which lasted a month each) I had to wait for a fast charger just two times. Once for 10 minutes, and another for about 30. I realize this will change as more electric cars hit the roads -- but every company (The Electric Circuit, Chargepoint, Flo, major gas station brands) are all installing new infrastructure weekly.

Wow, the table in that article really shows how far behind we are. 0.1 charging stations per 100 vehicles whereas the average is about 4 per 100 vehicles in the US

as someone owns an EV, some areas really have no chargers. I lived in Markham, ON, for the last 5 years and the only public fast charger at city hall is always down. Only other option is to sit at the YMCA parking lot.