In the April 2019 provincial general election, all four of the political parties on Prince Edward Island had planks in their platforms related to electric vehicles.
The PC Party pledged to “develop a solar energy rebate and electric vehicle incentive program” and to “add more electric vehicles to the government fleet as replacements are required.” The Green Party to “develop a program to support the installation of electric vehicle chargers in homes and workplace,” to “create a purchase incentive for electric vehicles,” and to “transition the provincial fleet to electric vehicles.” The Liberal Party promised to “invest in new public electric vehicle charging stations and provide tax rebates for the purchase and installation of home charging stations” and the NDP to offer “increased incentives to encourage people to purchase electric or other low-pollution vehicles.”
All of which raises the question: how many electric vehicles are there on Prince Edward Island right now?
I asked the Registrar of Motor Vehicles, and here are the counts, by fuel type, for calendar year 2019 to date:
| FUEL | COUNT | PER CENT |
|---|---|---|
| Gas/Propane | 2 | 0.00% |
| Gas/Natural Gas | 3 | 0.00% |
| Butane | 3 | 0.00% |
| PHEV (Plugin Hybrid Electric) | 7 | 0.01% |
| Propane | 10 | 0.01% |
| Gas/Alcohol | 17 | 0.02% |
| Electric | 33 | 0.05% |
| Diesel/Butane | 65 | 0.09% |
| Other | 110 | 0.15% |
| Hybrid — Electric/Gas | 403 | 0.56% |
| Diesel | 4,708 | 6.55% |
| Gas | 66,511 | 92.54% |
| TOTAL | 71,872 | 100.00% |
Aggregated by fuel technology–fossil fuel (gas, diesel, butane, etc.), hybrid (like a Toyota Prius, which doesn’t plug-in, and a Kia Nero, which does) and battery electric (like a Tesla, Nissan LEAF or Chevy Bolt), the dominance of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles on the Island is ”why even bother making a pie chart” clear:
| FUEL | COUNT |
|---|---|
| Fossil Fuel | 71,429 |
| Hybrid | 410 |
| Electric | 33 |
I’m pretty sure I know personally at least a third of the electric vehicle owners on Prince Edward Island.
The province’s Climate Change Action Plan–which is actual policy, not platform–has two actions related to electric vehicle adoption:
12. Government will design and install a province-wide electric vehicle charging network to meet the needs of both residents and visitors to Prince Edward Island.
14. Government will increase the use of electric vehicles in its light-duty vehicle fleet.
That plan commits Islanders to lowering our carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from 1.8 megatonnes per year to 1.4 megatonnes per year; this has been further amended to 1.2 megatonnes per year
So, in other words, we have 11 years to stop emitting 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
These two Climate Action Plan moves related to electric vehicles were to be responsible for 20,000 tonnes of that; that’s 5% under the original targets, so under the new target we’ll need to increase that to 30,000 tonnes.
According to the EPA, the typical passenger vehicle emits 4.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, meaning that our commitment, if it were to come only from electric vehicle adoption (and generously assuming 100% zero carbon charging), will require 6,521 zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030.
Right now we have 33.
There was no electric vehicle incentive program announced in the June 25, 2019 Provincial Budget.