The Electric Car: Not Ready for Primetime!
Automotive journalists are currently divided into two camps. Some see the arrival of the electric car as a real blessing, a gift from the gods comparable to the invention of penicillin or electricity. The other, more prudent camp is waiting in the wings, claiming that today’s world isn’t ready to go all-out electric.
With all due respect to electric vehicle fans, I’m with the second group. Why? Imagine that tomorrow morning, gasoline is declared illegal. We all sell our vehicles to Americans and buy one of the 100% electric cars currently on the market (such as a Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Nissan LEAF, Tesla Model S or X, etc.). By some miracle, the supply of these vehicles can meet the demand. What happens next?
Firstly, Québec’s electric network will be seriously taxed. According to Hydro-Québec, an electric car uses an average of 18 kWh to travel 100 km. That means that Québec’s 4.5 million vehicles (numbers from 2014 data) travelling about 25,000 kilometres annually each will use more than 20 million kWh of electricity per year. Considering that Hydro-Québec had a surplus of 26.6 million kWh in 2014, the public utility could theoretically meet the demand – but its infrastructure obviously could not. New transmission and distribution lines would be needed across the province.
Next, you’d have to plan on long travel times. All 1,000 charging stations on the Electric Circuit would be immediately overwhelmed; for a trip between Québec City and Montréal, you’d have to factor in significant waiting times at charging stations. Since each car takes at least 30 minutes to charge, this wait could be very long indeed.
There’s no denying that the electric car has its place in the future. But for now, rumours of the death of the gasoline engine have been greatly exaggerated.