Environment Minister comments on EV pricing and billing procedures.
Although an investigation by CBC’s Marketplace revealed a wide range in pricing as well as inconsistent performance and reliability at public charging stations, the federal government has stated that expanding the network of electric vehicle charging stations is essential to achieving the nation’s climate goals.
Marketplace visited Ivy, Flo, ChargePoint, and Petro-Canada charging stations spread throughout Ontario to evaluate the cost and dependability of some of the country’s most well-known charging providers.
Marketplace recorded the cost of a 20-minute charge on a Volvo Polestar 2 and discovered that, depending on where they fill up, customers might be paying twice as much. This is an apples-to-apples kilowatt-per-hour comparison. One station assessed a fee of $10.09, whereas a rival charged $5.20.
Marketplace took a Nissan Leaf to three different locations from each of the four charging companies as part of an additional reliability test.
At seven of the twelve stations, the team faced difficulties of some kind.
Among the seven were three ChargePoint, three Petro-Canada, and one Ivy station. Several tries were required to initiate or terminate a charging session, and completing payments via an app or credit card reader presented difficulties.
The team was unable to charge at all at two of the locations (Petro-Canada and ChargePoint).
At the Flo locations we visited, there were no charging glitches.
Joanna Kyriazis, director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada, believes that this nation’s charging infrastructure should be installed and maintained using a single, all-encompassing strategy rather than a variety of approaches.
“The pricing and payment systems need to be standardized and convenient,” she stated.
Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault acknowledged “there are problems” despite the test’s relatively small sample size in an interview with Marketplace. And we’re attempting to solve those issues.”
