Kent Rathwell (left) and Christopher Misch (right) are crossing Canada in a Tesla Roadster. Bert Hickman, president of Hickman Chevrolet Cadillac in St. John’s, joins them at the launch. (Sun Country Highway)

–

The Globe and Mail - November 21, 2012

Executives of a Canadian company that distributes electric vehicle chargers are crossing the country in a Tesla Roadster to show off the network of free 240V chargers the company has installed along the Trans-Canada highway.

Kent Rathwell, founder and president of Sun Country Highway, set off last weekend from St. John’s, carrying a jar of Atlantic sea water to be deposited in the Pacific when he and SCH vice-president Christopher Misch complete their journey in Victoria around Dec. 20. The jar of water substituted for the original plan of dipping of the car’s wheels into the Atlantic after the two men checked out the slick ramp to the Atlantic. “We didn’t want the drive to end before it started,” Rathwell said in a phone interview this week.

The wet weather and slick ramp were not the only potential hazard the two encountered in Newfoundland in Rathwell’s low-slung electric Tesla Roadster, which has an EPA rated range of about 356 km, or more than double most “mainstream” EVs like the Leaf or Ford’s electric Focus. “We managed to make it through before a rock slide came down that hit the road with rocks the size of pickup trucks.”

A map for the entire network is under wraps until its official unveiling when the month-long journey is completed in Victoria just before Christmas, though a company release about the drive launch noted that SCH partnered with “over 80 leading Canadian businesses and tourism destinations.”

But since the Level Two stations donated by SCH are now up and running, many have been identified, mapped and discussed among EV owners already, including one at the Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa and another at the Hilton Garden Inn in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., which is about a 10-minute drive from Niagara Falls.

“We haven’t focused on the urban cores,” said Rathwell, which is where most electric vehicle infrastructure is currently located or planned. “Our model is to do the tough stuff first, and with no [direct] provincial and federal government funding.”

He credits the host locations for picking up the costs of installing the chargers SCH donated, which surprised him, as his plan was originally to fund it all. “Many of the people we spoke to had never seen an electric car, and some didn’t know they were already available at dealers.”

Rathwell says the 60- to 90-amp chargers help charge vehicles like the Tesla quicker than most L2 chargers, while it also future-proofs the stations to be able to charge faster in the years to come. He’s hoping the growing network will encourage more manufacturers to come out with more advanced EVs that can take advantage of these higher capability chargers, and more plug-in vehicles in general, and consumers to consider taking their own cross-country drive with their own plug-in vehicles as well.

“I can’t think of a better Christmas present I could give to Canada,” said Rathwell. “With this highway, we’re trying to help folks discover their country in an economically and environmentally responsible way.”

Read the article at The Globe and Mail

Watch the Video at NTV.ca

Alex Luft, GM Authority - Nov 16th, 2012

Chevrolet is launching the brand’s first pure-electric vehicle — the 2014 Spark EV (and its 400 lb.-ft. of torque) next year. Unfortunately, the limitation imposed by the electric range is a normal reality when it comes to today’s pure-electric vehicles, with the Spark EV being no exception. So to help mitigate the uncertainty and concern surrounding the car’s range, The General is adding a component to the OnStar RemoteLink application that will address the possible range anxiety of its EVs.

Called Waypoint, the new feature will become a part of RemoteLink app and will assist Spark EV owners in determining if they can reach their planned destination on a single charge, if they will need to stop and charge their vehicle to reach the destination, or if the route is beyond the range of the vehicle entirely; if the destination is beyond a single charge and requires the vehicle to stop and charge, Waypoint will also plot a route with recommended charging stations.

In practice, the driver will launch the RemoteLink app and select the destination using the app’s navigation feature. Once the destination is selected, the Waypoint feature will compare the distance of the destination to the remaining battery life of the Spark EV, and tell the driver one of the following four things:

• Destination is within the range of a single charge
• Destination is within a single charge range, but the vehicle needs to be charged more before the driver begins traveling
• Destination is further than a single charge range and requires a waypoint route
• No waypoint route is available and destination is beyond vehicle range. Due to a lack of charging stations a waypoint route may not always be possible.

Waypoint will tell the driver how long the drive (in and of itself) will take as well as how long it will take to charge the Spark at each stop, if applicable; the app is capable of combining the two time measurements for a total trip duration.

“The Spark EV Waypoint tab aims to instill confidence in drivers who are not sure if they’ll be able to reach their destination on a single charge,” said Paul Pebbles, global manager, OnStar Electric Vehicle and Smart Grid Services. “It’s also for drivers who know they’ll be traveling beyond a single charge range.”

OnStar plans to roll out the Waypoint addition to the RemoteLink app in time for the launch of the 2014 Spark EV in 2013. It will also make the Waypoint feature available online at the recently-launched GM Owner Center. Doing so will allow users to send directions to their vehicle, which will be stored in the OnStar Virtual Advisor service.

Waypoint functionality will join the other EV-specific aspect of the RemoteLink app, as Chevy Volt owners have had the ability to manage the charging of their vehicle, including selecting to charge during off-peak hours, in the application.

The GM Authority Take

This Waypoint is pretty cool, we tell ya. The type of functionality found here will be necessary until 1) battery technology progress to a level where EV range is no longer an issue, and 2) EV charging stations are as common as gas stations are today. Nevertheless, it’s technology like this that makes us appreciate GM, OnStar, and its products that much more.

And you know what would be even more awesome? If Waypoint was able to take into account traffic conditions, such as the functionality recently attained by the Chinese-only variant of RemoteLink.

Read the article at GM Authority

Frank Vismeg and charging station at Hilton Garden Inn and Conference Centre.

–

Don Fraser, Thorold Edition - November 5, 2012

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE - Frank Vismeg has always gotten a charge out of pushing his hotels to lead the way environmentally.

“I was the first as far as I know in 1980 to open the first two non-smoking floors at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in Toronto,” said Vismeg, now managing director of marketing and sales for the Hilton Garden Inn in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

In 2009, he was involved in the country’s first new-construction LEED-certified hotel‚ the Hilton Garden Inn Toronto Airport.

That certification focused on best practices in areas like water savings, energy efficiency and environmental health.

So when electric-car driving customers at his current York St. hotel asked about charging stations, Vismeg was intrigued.

“They asked me where they could charge their cars here,” Vismeg said. “And naturally, at first I had no answer for them.”

After some research, he connected with Stephen Bieda of Sun Country Highway who proposed installing a 90-amp station to power up e-vehicles like the Chevy Volt and Tesla.

“We had coffee, talked about it and make an agreement to install,” Vismeg said.

He said the amenity — put in late last month — lets him attract a growing e-car driving market from further afield.

The level-two charging station usually takes in the neighbourhood of an hour for vehicles to charge.

Vismeg also decided the service would be free for car owners staying at the hotel

Two spots for the charging area are designated in the parking lot area, with the spaces appropriately painted green.

He said a number of customers have already charged up their wheels there.

The Hilton Garden is among an emerging trend of select e-car friendly hoteliers.

And it isn’t the only Niagara hotel with charging stations.

White Oaks in Niagara-on-the-Lake is one that recently offered the new service, also installed by Sun Country at about the same time.

“I assume two years from now, almost every hotel will have at least one electric charging station,” Vismeq said.

“More and more people are buying them because gas has become just too expensive.”

Read the article at the Thorold Edition

Recently a colleague and I took a road trip — with the future of road trips fully in mind. We travelled 150km along the east coast of Vancouver Island, wondering what the trip would be like if we were in an electric car.

I know from the research I’ve done with the Pembina Institute that electric vehicles (EVs) can help to significantly lower air pollution and help slow climate change. In order for that to happen a few things need to be in place: electricity needs to come from clean sources, electric vehicles must be affordable, and charging infrastructure has to be available at strategic locations.

We know that British Columbia’s electricity is primarily fossil fuel-free and electric vehicles are now available in Canada (with several provinces offering rebates), but if we were in an electric car and had to “fill up the tank” what would we do?

Charging stations for electric vehicles seem to be popping up around the province at a pretty good pace and there are even several websites and apps designed to locate these stations. For this trip, I checked the website “PlugShare” and found nine charging stations, each open to the public, within easy side trips of our main route from Nanaimo to Campbell River. We just had to see them for ourselves.

We found charging stations at a community centre in Nanaimo, a grocery store and City Hall in Qualicum Beach, and the visitors’ centre in Comox Valley. Additional charging stations along our route that we didn’t see include Nanaimo’s conference centre and Port Theater, a Nissan shop in Comox Valley as well as an RV resort and Canadian Electric Vehicles Ltd: a shop that manufactures electric trucks and converts gas-powered cars to electric ones.

We saw cars charging up at four of the stations we stopped at; in fact two EVs pulled up to charge at the community centre just as we were taking some photos.

Our final destination was Campbell River where we ran a workshop attended by a diverse group of community leaders from both business and public sectors. At our EV planning workshop, this group worked together to prioritize locations for the first 10 charging stations in the city and discuss issues such as EV public-private partnerships as well as parking.

The workshop attendees ended the day aware of the challenges of getting these stations installed but optimistic about the possibilities. Other businesses and communities across B.C. are also in the process of installing charging stations and we’re looking forward to helping even more businesses and organizations play a part in developing a charging station network across the province.

My preference is to leave my car at home as much as possible and walking, public transportation and telecommuting are all options for me. But knowing that sometimes a personal vehicle really is the best option for many travel needs, it’s great to know that communities and businesses are working now to make EVs part of our transportation future.

Read the article at the Pembina Institute

The Sun Country Highway made its way through Huron County last week stopping at charging stations that have been installed at The Old Mill in Blyth and here at McGavin Farm Equipment in Walton. Christopher Misch, right, vice-president of sales and business development for the company, was more than willing to show, from left, Brian, Neil and Jeff McGavin, how the electric cars work and how to charge them up. (Denny Scott photo)

Denny Scott, My Huron Info. - October 17, 2012

Two local businesses are becoming part of a nation-wide green highway that is set to launch later this year.

McGavin Farm Supply Ltd. in Walton and The Old Mill in Blyth both unveiled Sun Country Highway electric vehicle charging stations last week in hopes of bringing electric cars owners into the area as tourists and as a means of showing that the technology is available in rural Ontario.

Christopher Misch, vice-president of sales and business development for Sun Country Highway, which is based in London  and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, explained that the electric vehicle charging centre company is creating “win-win” situations for local businesses.

“This is a great way to attract new, green support for local businesses,” he said. “Electric vehicle owners get the opportunity to charge their vehicle, which can take anywhere from half an hour to three hours, and local businesses have a captive audience for that time.”

Misch said that one of Sun Country’s fleet vehicles, a Tesla Roadster, a two-seat sports car that wouldn’t look out of place on the German autobahns, could take as long as three hours to charge and cost a business owner $5, while most other vehicles wouldn’t need to charge that long or cost that much.

“The average cost would be about $0.80 to $3,” he said. “The car could be there an hour or less and that brings tourism in and recreates car tourism.”

The sports car, according to Misch, goes from zero to 100 kilometres an hour in 3.7 seconds, can manage 300 to 400 kilometres and has a maximum speed of approximately 200 kilometres per hour (125 miles per hour) according to the manufacturer’s website.

The charging stations, which work with almost all models of electric cars (some quicker than others), are simple to use and are considered Level Two charging stations according to President and Founder of the company, and Brucefield native, Kent Rathwell.

“Level One chargers will fully charge a car in 78 hours,” he said. “Level two chargers work much faster charging a carry fully in three hours, but most will top up in about half an hour if they haven’t been completely drained.”

The company is attempting to build a network of the chargers from coast to coast, starting in Victoria and ending in Newfoundland by 2013 and is ahead of schedule. Estimates have the entire highway opening within the next two weeks.

One of the highlights of both presentations was the vehicles being used.

While electric and hybrid cars are becoming more commonplace, the company wanted to show what current electric vehicle designs were really capable of, using the Tesla Roadster and also a specially designed hybrid pickup truck, called a VTRUX, by Via Motors, an American company with which Sun Country is partnering.

“We are the exclusive distributor and marketing arm of Via Motors in Canada,” Misch said. “We’ll be  looking at manufacturing them in Canada.”

The truck is designed with both an electric motor as well as a gas generator to charge the battery of the truck while on the road. The vehicle, which would find itself at home at a job site according to Misch, also comes with four 120-volt outlets and one 240-volt outlet on the side of the vehicle, providing an on-the-spot generator as well.

By showing off the vehicle, the company hopes to dispel some of the myths surrounding electric cars and trucks.

The vision for the company is one of a greener tomorrow, according to Misch, who said that goal is usually what attracts potential business sites for their chargers.

“Our business partners usually want to collaborate with us on our goal of being green,” he said. “Most of them want to be stewards of their environment and attract support for green business.”

The chargers cost between $700 and $2,000 each, but many of them were donated according to Rathwell, to help complete the highway.

Glenyce Snell, along with daughter Amanda Aitken at the Old Mill, were on hand for the opening at their location and said they were excited that the opportunity was there for them to bring a new kind of tourism into Huron County.

A similar sentiment was held by the McGavin family at their unveiling.

Read the article at My Huron Info.

Clean Technica, Zachary Shahan – October 9, 2012

Market research forecasts are almost never correct, but decent ones do give a good sense for how things are likely to change in various industries. I’ve found that Pike Research does a pretty good job of conducting cleantech market research reports. Its latest is on the growth of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations around the world.

Of course, the first generation of modern, mass-market electric vehicles (if you don’t count the aborted generation from a couple decades ago) just started rolling off the assembly lines in the past few years. In the past year or so, there has been a big increase in the number of companies working on or even already selling electric vehicles. And most projections indicate that we are just getting started.

My bet is that EVs will boom substantially in the coming decade. With that growth, of course, comes growth in related components… such as EV charging stations.

Pike Research projects that electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) will increase from under 200,000 in 2012 to almost 2.4 million in 2020 — big jump.

Furthermore: “By 2020, the study concludes, 11.4 million EV charging stations will be in operation worldwide.”

A mix of government incentives and procurement, entrepreneurial development and cost reductions, and increasing consumer demand will be the driving (no pun intended) force behind this EV charging station growth.

Here’s more from Pike Research, which gives you a sense for some of the assumptions included in the forecast: “A key factor in the split between residential and commercial EVSE sales, Jerram adds, is the percentage of PEV owners who have access to home charging. The report forecasts that the market for commercial charging equipment will grow at a faster rate than that for residential charging equipment. According to the report, 2013 will be a critical year since the PEV market will be transitioning from early adopters in regions such as North America, where consumers are more likely to have a secured parking spot in which to install a charger, to a broader base of consumers living in multi-family dwellings, leading to greater growth in the sales of commercial EVSE than in residential units.”

The report, if you want to read more, is titled “Electric Vehicle Charging Equipment.”

And here are a few more details about the report if you want to read more here before clicking over: “Including market analysis and forecasts for residential, workplace, public, and private EVSE, the report covers the development of fast charging over the past year and forecasts direct-current charging sales. It also forecasts the growth of wireless charging equipment, set to become commercially available in the 2013–2015 timeframe. EVSE forecasts cover the major regions of the world and include breakouts for key adopter countries including the United States, Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Korea, and Israel. The report also includes profiles of more than 40 industry players, including EVSE manufacturers and service providers, their suppliers, vehicle OEMs, and utilities. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the Pike Research website.”

What do you think? 11 million EV charging stations by 2020? More? Fewer?

Read the article at Clean Technica

–

Norman DeBono, The London Free Press - October 4, 2012

London is going electric.

The city now has its first public, electric-vehicle charger, the first such plug-in west of Toronto.

“We are greening Canada’s highways,” said Christopher Misch, vice-president of Sun Country Highway Ltd., which is installing the charger.

“If a small company like us can self-fund infrastructure across Canada creating a long green highway, what can governments do, what can large corporations do?” he asked.

The charger is located at the Stoneridge Inn and Conference Centre, a Best Western hotel, south of Hwy. 401.

Sun Country now has about 40 chargers in Ontario, between Toronto and Sudbury, and more than 100 across Canada, Misch said.

“We are very excited to be in London,” he said. “This city is talking now about what they need to do to move forward. It is exciting.”

The charge is free to drivers, and Sun Country is donating the $2,000 charger to the hotel. It covers the cost of the charge — about $1 for an average electric vehicle such as a Chevy Volt — as a promotion, he added.

Sun Country will make money selling the chargers in the future as electrification grows, Misch said.

“It is great branding — all these companies will be purchasing future chargers as the electric vehicle population grows.”

In London, Sun Country has also installed two chargers at a Tricar condominium and apartment development, the downtown Rennaissance Towers, and another at a north London TD Bank branch, but they’re not open to the public.

Still, Misch believes more chargers are coming to London.

“We are aiming for there to be one in 20 vehicles sales to be an electric by 2020. Once it starts happening, you will see demand heat up,” he said.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• Only 468 of 1.58 million vehicles sold in Canada in 2011 were electric.

• Yearly sales of plug-in electric vehicles are forecast to reach 400,073 in the U.S. and 107,146 in Canada by 2020, according to reports.

• A KPMG report says hybrid electric vehicles will make up about 15% of sales by 2025.

Read the article at IFpress

Listen to the interview at CBC.ca

Kent Rathwell’s company Sun Country Highways is currently installing e-vehicle chargers across the country, including in Sudbury at the Quality Inn. He’s pictured to the left, along with hotel general manager Troy Rainville. (Hilary Duff/CBC)

–

Four charging stations installed between Toronto and Sudbury

CBC News, Sep 26, 2012

The installation of four electric vehicle chargers at locations between Sudbury and Toronto means drivers can now make the journey on nothing but battery power — and hopefully give a boost to tourism.

Before these charging stations were installed, electric vehicle drivers in Toronto were restricted to travelling within the Greater Toronto Area, said the president of the Canadian company Sun Country Highways.

“Now that a lot of [people] are moving to electric cars to save money and help the environment and keep more money available for their family and their leisure activities, hopefully their leisure activities will include Sudbury in the future,” Kent Rathwell said.

His company is currently installing e-vehicle chargers across the country, including in Sudbury at the Quality Inn.

The general manager at the hotel, Troy Rainville, said the charge is free for hotel and restaurant guests and available to others at a small fee.

“It’s the perfect tie-in and I do believe that there will be an increase in tourism having this station,” he said.

“We’re hopeful that eventually we’ll have a number of other electric charging stations.”

New charging stations have also been installed in Parry Sound, Orillia and Aurora.

Rathwell said he expects the stations to draw people from southern Ontario to the north.

Electric pick-up trucks?

But one auto industry analyst said the stations won’t make a difference in the popularity of e-cars.

Dennis DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, said it’s a case of the infrastructure being put into place before the need is actually present.

“These charging stations … [are like] the chicken and egg situation,” he said.

“Between Toronto and Sudbury you might have — if I exaggerate — 100 electric vehicles. So what are the chances of one happening to be near your charging station?”

DesRosiers said northern Ontario consumers are also less likely to switch to electric vehicles because of weather and the area’s preference for larger-sized cars.

He said the market will eventually switch to electric cars but “I think we’re still looking at a minimum of a decade before plug-in electrics start to catch on, and that more likely will be two decades.”

And that begs the question of who will cover the capital cost of the electric charges while the market catches up, he said.

DesRosiers noted factors like weather, distances in rural areas, and people’s car size preference makes electric cars less likely to succeed in Sudbury and northern Ontario.

“When you get to the Sudbury’s in the world you have a higher percentage of pick-up trucks and the types of consumers that live in those areas prefer those types of vehicles,” he said.

“Right now, there isn’t a plug-in electric pick-up truck … there’s some daunting challenges here.”

Read the article at CBC.ca