In the April 2019 Prince Edward Island general election both the Green Party and PC Party platforms promised to incentivize electric vehicle purchases (“Create a purchase incentive for electric vehicles” and “Develop a solar energy rebate and electric vehicle incentive program,” said the platforms, respectively); added to the recently announced federal inventive program, there might never be a better time to purchase a new electric vehicle on PEI.
If you can find a dealer to sell you one, that is.
The federal program covers vehicles from 14 manufacturers, but only Chevrolet, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan and Volkswagen have dealers in Charlottetown that sell battery-electric vehicles (as opposed to hybrids), and of those 6 makes:
- Hillside Chevrolet has one Bolt on the lot, but it was sold and can’t be taken for a test drive (they’re expecting another soon).
- Fair Isle Ford doesn’t carry the Focus Electric.
- Experience Hyundai doesn’t carry any electric vehicles.
- Discover Kia doesn’t carry any electric vehicles.
- Centennial Nissan carries the Nissan Leaf, but doesn’t have any on the lot (they’re expecting two in the next couple of weeks).
- Brown’s Volkswagen doesn’t carry the e-Golf (they told me there are none sold east of Ontario).
In other words, although the federal government will rebate me $5000 for the purchase of a battery-electric vehicle, there’s not a single battery electric vehicle in Charlottetown that I can take for a test drive.