Canada’s most populous provinces are falling behind many U.S. states when it comes to building fast charging stations for electric vehicles, a CBC News analysis shows, raising questions about whether this country’s infrastructure is ready for a transition to cleaner energy.

  • nyan@lemmy.cafe
    10·
    1 year ago

    That’s a rather large-city-dweller-centric view of what people use their cars for. Public transport certainly can and should be part of the solution, but it’s often impractical in lower-density areas.

    Let’s see here, the last few times I took a car out of town . . . Well, we could have gotten the six boxes of books shipped, I suppose, but it would have cost more than just going and fetching them from 120km away. Family funeral on short notice—no option other than doing the ~400km-each-way drive. Medical emergency (mine)—400km-each-way drive again, since it wasn’t a life-threatening condition that would have caused them to find an ambulance right away, just something that could have blinded me in one eye. None of those things were recreational, and most of them weren’t really optional, either.

    Some trips out of town are important, and you don’t always have the luxury of waiting for public long-distance transit that runs only a couple of times a week, or enough notice to prepare your vehicle in advance. We need private vehicles, and the infrastructure to keep them on the road. EVs may not be the future in Toronto so much, but Toronto is only one small part of the country.

    • that_one_guy@beehaw.org
      10·
      1 year ago

      Nobody is arguing for banning personal vehicle outright. We should just stop attempting to plan ultra-dense urban environments around the least space efficient transportation options. Many public transportation systems already operate a ‘park and ride’ system by which more remote users are able to park their vehicle at a distant hub and then ride public transportation into more dense areas.

      Also, assuming that a future transportation system must look exactly like the one we have today - but bigger, is short sighted. If more people are needing to have a personal vehicle option in an infrequent manner, services to provide those vehicles will be required. Just because you personally can’t make it work tomorrow doesn’t mean that the goal of robust public transport in urban areas is infeasible.

    • Dearche@lemmy.ca
      7·
      1 year ago

      The parents of the youtuber Technology Connections life on a farm, yet they own an EV, and apparently they never use charging stations as the range on a second hand one is more than good enough for regular trips despite going to an entire city over.

      Modern EVs have a range starting at 400km nowadays, and I did say that highway rest stops should have charging stations. No matter how quickly you need to get somewhere, it can’t be so desperate that you can’t afford a half hour stop every three or four hours. And if it is, it sounds like something you probably shouldn’t be driving yourself for and instead be calling for an ambulance or helicopter.

      In the end, my argument is that all this shit about not having enough fast charging stations is going about things backwards. Charging stations shouldn’t be concentrated in cities, but instead along the highway, as EV range is great enough that daily transit doesn’t require charging along the way, or even at the destination.