The executive director of eMERGE is disappointed but not surprised the federal electric vehicle rebate program has been paused. And he doesn’t think it's necessarily a bad thing.
Transport Canada's Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles program was set to pause on March 31, or once all the funding had been used by Canadians.
Evan Ferrari of eMERGE sees the growth in the market. Where some see the rebate pause as a negative and think people are giving up on EVs “just the opposite is happening,” he said.
From Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation data from the end of 2024, there were 2,303 EVs registered using Guelph postal codes.
Ferrari is impressed with the numbers.
In the third quarter of the year Ontario saw 11,771 new EVs registered, according to data from Statistics Canada.
The number of EV charging “pumps” at stations and private individual chargers at homes in Guelph are more than the amount of gas pumps in the city, said Ferrari. Data eMERGE collected in 2021 through EV owners, EV charging station apps and going to locations in-person estimated there are about 1,000 private chargers in the city.
When talking with Guelph EV owners he said they don’t know where charging stations are since the majority of the charging gets done at their home.
It’s all over the map for people looking to get into EVs for whether the rebate program was a factor for them purchasing, he said.
“Some people have the money and want to do the right thing. Others have to scrape together the money, and will take advantage of every incentive that they possibly could,” said Ferrari. For those who use the incentives they may not purchase a vehicle without it.
He said the cost of EVs are going down and getting closer to being on par with the cost of gas powered vehicles. He referenced the Ontario rebate program that was cut in 2018 and said EVs have decreased in price since then.
“The incentives are doing exactly what they were expected to do,” he said. The marketplace of EVs is growing and he thinks its on the right trajectory for having less gas cars on the road.
One of the targets the federal government is to have zero-emission vehicles sales be at least 20 per cent by 2026. We might be “sweating to get it done” by then, said Ferrari. He is interested to see the impact of the pause on the rebate program for reaching the target.
For people considering purchasing an EV who may have questions about it, Ferrari wants to see misinformation around EVs to stop so it doesn't dissuade them. One of the concerns is about the range of the vehicle for how long it can be on the road before it needs to be charged.
“On average in Guelph, people drive less than 50 kilometres a day, and yet people seem to always worry about that five or 600 kilometre trip that they take once or twice a year. And that's the reason why they may or may not go with the vehicle,” he said.
He’s also talked with people who are still skeptical about EVs and are defaulting to hybrid vehicles. He suggests buying a used hybrid instead and in time there will be more models of EVs to choose from.
Information like this and the cost of EVs being paired with the announcement of the rebate pause is what he’d like to see. But unfortunately “the haters are going to hate and that will be what’s amplified,” said Ferrari. He thinks people are going to say they don’t see EVs anywhere but he said sees them everywhere.
