A new strategy is being presented to city council which aims to make all of Toronto's transportation use electric energy by 2050.
The Electric Vehicle Strategy (EV Strategy), was prepared by Montreal-based Dunsky Energy Consulting and will be presented at city council's infrastructure committee on Thursday for approval.
The strategy identifies a range of actions to help the city achieve its 2050 goal of having all transportation powered by zero-carbon energy sources, including building more electric vehicle charging stations, exploring financial incentives, and calling for higher government to be involved.
“Electric vehicles have advanced significantly this past decade, owing in part to maturing technology, increased model availability (new and used EVs), decreasing battery costs, and significant greenhouse gas reduction, air quality and urban noise reduction benefits,” reads the strategy.
“This EV Strategy recommends actions that need to be taken if electric vehicles are to significantly penetrate the passenger vehicle market.”
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The EV Strategy, the first of its kind in the city, aims to make Toronto ready to handle 220,000 plug-ins for electric vehicles (20% of public vehicles) by 2030. However, by 2050, the EV Strategy plans to have 100% of light-duty vehicles zero-emitting.
Achieving this will not only have an impact on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but it will also provide additional co-benefits to the city, including improving resident health and strengthening the local economy.
Currently, there are only 6,300 electric vehicles in Toronto, which is less than 1% of vehicles registered. However, it doesn't help that it's extremely difficult to find an EV charging station in the city.
According to the EV Strategy, the city does have a number of various initiatives in place to install more on-street public charging infrastructure in various locations, including permit parking areas and other parking facilities.
The strategy comes to council just months after Toronto joined 800 global governments to declare a climate emergency, and if approved, city staff will start developing business cases to figure out how to implement the strategy in the coming years.
The full strategy, outlining all recommendations, can be found here.
