About four years ago, mechanic Todd Penney received his first phone call from a Tesla owner planning to travel through Fort Nelson, B.C. on his way to Alaska.
Despite the rise of EVs taking a toll on Penney’s business, he says his passion for his community and desire to expand Fort Nelson’s tourism industry overwhelms any negative impacts EVs are having on his work. “I spoke to [a person] over the weekend [who] lives in the Yukon, and they really want to test out their electric car,” he said. “So they're driving down... to Edmonton and back.”
But while some of B.C.’s cities make the province a leader in EV adoption in North America, many of the province’s rural communities are being left behind. To change this narrative, the NRRM is endeavouring to help bring small rural towns into the province’s electrifying movement. Ironically, when Sheppard brought forward the request to turn on the municipality-owned plug at the council meeting, one of those dying EVs rolled into town. “I just had [an EV] show up at about quarter to six here, I received a text and I sent a staff member down to make access to a plug,” Penney said in the council meeting.
Slated to open by the end of 2023, the Charge North station will be one of 58 chargers installed in over 40 northern B.C. communities. With construction yet to begin on the charging network, Wiess said there remains an urban-rural divide in EV infrastructure, driven by, among other things, money.“The funding incentives aren't there for private companies to go to these regions that don't have the adoption that urban centres might have, given population or just general access to electric vehicles.
Werner Antweiler, associate professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, said concerns about batteries performing in places as far north as Fort Nelson are backed by science. “Below the 50th parallel in a lot of parts of Canada, where the conditions aren't too severe, EVs are perfectly fine. But the further north you go... you have wintry conditions that are not really ideal for EVs yet.”
In the growing communities of Sechelt and Bowen Island, EV populations rose by at least 25 per cent in 2021.