We're All Electric Now

We took the plunge and went all electric, I almost can't believe that we have purchased a fully electric vehicle. To be more specific, we got a Nisan Leaf. Ask the journalists and even the car manufacturers about electric vehicles in Canada and they all say the demand isn't there because of the low temperatures in winter, it decreases your range, and because of the large distances needed to travel here. However, when I started the electric car search I couldn't find much stock! The e-Golf was about to be launched (deliveries still need to start) and they have already fulfilled the whole of their 2018 allocation in pre-orders. With the 2018 Nissan Leaf coming out I thought everyone would be holding off on buying the last of the 2017 stock, but I could only find 3 Nissan Leaf's available in whole of the GTA (one of those was in Oakville). I bought the car new, but with the dealer incentives and the $14,000 Ontario rebate on electric cars, it made the price quite attractive, around $25,000.

So why did we ignore the journalists and the car manufacturers and jump right in? Well, I was planning on buying a plug-in hybrid, you get the electric drive, but you have the normal engine to take you all the way to wherever you want. However, when looking at those options two things jumped out at me. Firstly the electric range is ridiculously low, maybe 30 km's, secondly the battery is shoved into the boot of the normal petrol version. So you end up with a petrol car with no boot space. With two kids that was not an option.

Truth be told, my wife was the braver one. She pointed out that we have not yet taken a long trip in Canada after living here for a year and a bit. She pointed out if we really needed to take a long trip that really required a petrol car we could rent one. If we do that once a year we would still be saving money. (At the moment I'm using some of the free charging points wherever I can, so nice to get "gas" for free!)

My main motivation is the low cost to power the vehicle. The low night time electricity rates here in Toronto are 6.5 cents per kWh which means to fully charge the car (it's an SL with a 30kWh battery) will cost $1.95 (this is according to my own logic, please point out in the comments if I've made a mistake in the calculation of multiplying the cost of a kWh with the size of the battery). On a full charge I can go at least 150 km's (more like 190km's), that means driving 600 kms will cost me less than $8. Compare that to a full tank of gas which always cost me at least $40 and I went maximum 400 km's with, then that is a massive saving each time I need to use the car.

What are my thoughts now that we are fully electric? I'm thoroughly enjoying it. There is no range anxiety, I don't charge every day because there is no need. I take advantage of the free charging provided in various locations (there is even one at my office if I can remember to put the cable back in the car). I haven't taken a long trip yet, but I figure I can at least go to a level 3 charger and have lunch and my car will be fully charged in under an hour. I can get to Niagara without charging and I can get to lake Simcoe by charging once. That's quite a few places I can explore in the meantime. Happy travels!

Now if you want to get your own Electric Car here are some websites to help you.

Firstly this is a list of the electric cars available in Canada, I was quite surprised to learn the Europe just has so much more of a selection of electric cars.  As you can see the selection in North America is quite small, at the time of writing this the Renault cars are not available here and VW was starting to launch the e-Golf for the first time as their first EV in Canada.  The VW e-Up is not available.

Secondly, you want to know how much of a rebate your electric vehicle is eligible for?  Well, have a look at this website giving the exact details of what car is eligible for what amount in the Ontario Electric Vehicle Incentive Program.  You don't need to worry about applying for the deduction yourself, the dealer deducts it in the quote and you don't have to pay it first.  Those problems all belong to the dealer, so the only money you need to find is the final amount minus rebate and dealer discounts.

PS: If you want to test drive a few different brand electric cars in one place check out Plug n Drive's Electric Vehicle Discovery Centre at 1126 Finch Ave West in Toronto.  You can see more about what vehicles are available on their website.