Canada needs hundreds of thousands of public EV charging ports. Who is going to build them?

Most of the people who come to visit Debbie Nightingale's Ontario farm are lured in by a chance to get up close and personal with her herd of friendly goats. But some visit for more practical reasons: to charge their electric vehicles.

"We have people who come on a regular basis because they know we have these," Nightingale said, gesturing to the two-port EV-charging station she installed last year with the help of a federal tourism recovery grant.

As part of the federal government's net-zero targets for the future, it is aiming for all new light-duty car and passenger truck sales to be zero emission by 2035, which will require a nationwide network of public charging ports.

"We think sustainability is really important, and when we looked around, we didn't see many other EV chargers in the area. So we thought it would be great to have one locally," Nightingale said.

She pulled out a map to demonstrate her point. Nightingale's farm is in Newtonville, roughly 100 kilometres northeast of Toronto. Around it, her map reveals only a handful of far-flung public EV charging stations.

Ian Everdell, who lives nearby in Port Hope, said he appreciates the new addition to the goat farm after he and his wife bought their second EV.

"We specifically got one that we knew we could get into and out of Toronto on a full charge, because it is still a challenge sometimes to find a charger," he said.

"When you do find one, sometimes there's a vehicle already plugged in there. There's 18 different apps that you might have to use. They don't always work."

Canada lags on charging infrastructure

The lack of chargers across the country is a big concern for Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association.

"We currently do not have enough charging infrastructure to support the EVs that are coming onto the roads today," he said from his Ottawa office.

More concerning for Kingston is the massive expansion of public charging infrastructure needed to meet the 2035 zero-emission vehicle targets of what could be upwards of 12 million electric vehicles on the roads.

Natural Resources Canada estimates that depending on the availability of home charging, Canada will need between 442,000 and 469,000 public charging ports by 2035. It says that as of Dec. 1, there are currently 10,425 charging stations and 25,246 charging ports based on data from the Electric Charging and Alternative Fuelling Station Locator.

In August, an internal report found that fewer than one in five federally funded chargers were operational.

"There's a big gap between what we currently have and what is required," Kingston said. "And if we're going to hit these very aggressive sales targets, we need to see a massive build-out of charging infrastructure."

Kingston said he sees that as the federal government's job.

"The primary responsibility for this infrastructure right now does lie with the federal government, and the reason for that is they are regulating the sale of these vehicles and they're establishing these targets," he said.

'This is 100 per cent an industry thing'

But Josipa Petrunic, president and CEO of the non-profit Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium, said she doesn't see it that way.

"Truthfully the taxpayer has built enough," she said. "This is 100 per cent an industry thing, and I really don't have a lot of patience for the argument — in particular from the auto sector these days — in the past couple of years about the government should do it."

Petrunic said the auto sector should be leading the charge because it has all of the data on where charging ports are needed — and where they will be needed in the future.

"They're the ones that need to start innovating to basically sell a car with the service of charging, just like Tesla has done," she said.

However, Petrunic said, she does see a larger federal role in building infrastructure in northern, Indigenous and rural communities.

"That will have to be subsidized by the state. And that makes sense," she said.

There is currently no single body that is implementing public charging infrastructure or deciding where chargers go nationwide. Instead, chargers are being funded through a combination of federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments, as well as the private sector, mostly in large urban areas.

Kingston said he would welcome a more organized collaboration with the federal government.

"I think we need to establish a commission that effectively sets that target, measures its progress and delivers on it, because we cannot achieve the government sales targets if we don't have the corresponding infrastructure. And right now, those two things are completely disconnected — and that's a real challenge."

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Chargers should be required in new builds: expert

Canada will also significantly scale up the availability of charging infrastructure at condo buildings and multi-dwelling homes to support the needs of EVs.

Retrofitting condos and apartment buildings to be EV friendly can cost anywhere from hundreds of dollars to thousands if the transformers feeding the complex need to be upgraded, said Olivier Trescases, a professor at the University of Toronto and a Canada Research Chair in Power Electronic Converters.

"It really comes down to whether the building actually has the power capacity, right? And so worst case is if everyone is charging at the same time while air-conditioning units are running and so on," he said.

"For new builds, it makes a lot of sense to impose requirements that every new parking space has at least a rough-in for a charger," Trescases said.

"Then when the time comes, you can actually install the charger and plug it into that receptacle because the technology is changing."

Across the country, there's a smorgasbord of incentives and regulations for new builds to include varying numbers of EV charging stations. The federal government is providing some funding to install EV chargers in multi-dwelling builds. It's also trying to make changes to the Canadian Electrical Code so that new residential buildings will be EV-ready.

One massive condo development in Toronto is betting on the marketability of a net-zero future. The Residences at Central Park in the city's northeast will combine residential and retail structures and green spaces and have more than 1,500 EV charging stations — one for every parking spot in the community.

"Obviously, Toronto doesn't have as many EV charging stations as they want," said Ashling Evans, general manager of real estate at Amexon Development Corporation, the company behind Central Park. "Some condos that are being developed right now … aren't actually putting in 100 per cent; they're doing just the minimum."

Evans said this development took the long view of what the needs will be in the future, even though it cost an extra $10 million to $12 million to implement the vision of an EV charger for every spot.

"It's a win-win for the environment. It also entices people that purchase the unit here to buy an EV vehicle, which is what we want people to do," she said.

Encouraging people to be more green is also one of the reasons Debbie Nightingale installed the chargers on her farm.

Underground cables connect her charging station to her restaurant. People park, plug in, see the animals and have lunch at her café — all while their vehicles recharge.

"I don't ever see it as a huge income producer. I do see it as something that will pay for itself as it goes along. But that's fine with me because … the intent was just to have something to be supportive of the environment," she said.