Switching to EVs and ditching gas could save Canadians more than $500 a month, report says

Talks about Canada but this is very southern Ontario centric. Also does not account for the cost of the battery in the car which loses capacity with every charge and current experience from my reading depending on use it is pretty much done in 10 years or less my gas tank holds the same energy at every fill up. Now I am in general a fan of going electric as much as practical but I am not blind to the fact that the savings are going to be nowhere near what these types of stories push. Again from reading about people’s lived experiences heat pumps have a shorter life than a furnace with a way higher replacement cost which will not be subsidised. Power rates vary greatly across the country and they barely even touch on that.

It would be nice to see at least some of the data and thier assumptions for thier assertions.

On paper, this appears to make sense — however, my vehicle is only a few years old and is paid off. Getting into a $700 per month vehicle loan to save $500 a month in operating costs just doesn’t square up, and it’ll be many years until my car craps out if I maintain it properly.

I’m likely going to buy electric for my *next* vehicle, but I don’t anticipate having to do that for at least another 6-8 years minimum — and I suspect that by that time, there will be enough EVs on the road that the government will no longer be able to ignore the shortfall in the amount of fuel taxes being paid, thus will likely have to levy very high registration fees to make up for it, so the monthly/annual savings on gas and maintenance will partially be eaten by having to make up that tax bill. The money has to come from somewhere.

In short, it’s not as simple as “you save all this money not paying for gas”, there is give and take on both sides.

Does this factor in the installation of a charger for the home? Not sure how EV’s normally charge, but I would imagine a standard 110V extension cord is going to charge one car very slowly. How much to upgrade the electrical service for a home to rapid charge one or two vehicles?

Me personally, I’m not buying into it. My paid off little Nissan Kicks is pulling 5.5 L/100km so I am not seeing the savings to go electric even before swapping out my completely filled electrical [panel to install a charger.

Know what would save even more? Proper investments into public transit so people wouldn’t need a car.

Would benefit so many individuals and definitely help with the affordability crisis we’re all faced with. If a multi-car household could just become a single-car household, even if that vehicle is still petrol, it would make a significant dent in household expenses that would help many individuals/families.

As I aged into my 30s, I realised that commuting sucks – and I’m way happier leaving those long drives to other means. I’d love to have options like inter-city heavy rail out west here. I wouldn’t have to burn myself out commuting 6-12 hours one-way for every work rotation (word industrial construction)

Even keeping local, get home from work, while I have time in the evening to go out, I don’t want the hassle of driving somewhere. I’d rather have the opportunity to just walk (or other means of active transportation) to go to the local restaurant/bar, even a community market (that isn’t a convenience store) to get groceries.
I don’t overly mind doing small trips to the store, in fact I think its better for all.

But we really just need to curb our dependence on vehicle trips – EV adoption will follow