Vancouver proposes 10k-dollar annual fee for gas stations without EV charging

Would be better to incentivize 24 hour grocery stores to provide low cost leases to fast DC charge networks. 20-30 minutes grocery shopping or dining is the new charge experience, versus five minute fill ups at your traditional petrol dispenser. Those who can will charge at home or work most of the time.

This seems misguided to me. One of the biggest benefits to an EV is not having to go to a gas station. Most people can charge at home for their typical needs. Next, it makes sense to put then at a person's work, then at stores or public parking. And of course there needs to be charging infrastructure on highway gas stations and/or rest stops. Making all gas stations, especially urban ones, pay a fine for not having chargers is stupid.

Having sat around in EVs charging with nothing to do, it would be better for Vancouver to incentivize charging stations at places where people might spend that time doing something, like stores, restaurants, etc. It would also be nice for chargers to be installed for street parking in popular areas.<p>Sitting at a gas station for a half hour to an hour sounds more like punishment for having an EV.

Sounds like a way to quickly create an unreliable network of shitty, dimly lit EV chargers that help sour EV adoption.

This kind of makes sense to me.<p>Gas stations are already setup as places where cars are coming and going frequently. As cars move from gas to electric, the use of these places transitions smoothly.<p>It&#x27;s a pigouvian tax: tax the things we want less of; in this case gas stations without chargers. I always kind of like those.<p>Could work.

Has anyone noticed lately there&#x27;s an overwhelming number of laws designed more for virtue signalling than effectiveness? Straws for example. Shouldn&#x27;t we be writing laws banning plastic straws rather than fine places for passing them out without being asked.<p>Also for EVs if there is a lot of money in charging networks, wouldn&#x27;t the market just &quot;work&quot; for that. I&#x27;m kind of sick of liberal politics (but not liberal ideas - like people buying EVs and supporting a clean environment).

Why should EV chargers be at gas stations?

Given it&#x27;s Vancouver couldn&#x27;t they crank up the property taxes instead? Might relieve some of the real estate pressure coming from second-home owners as well - win-win!

Gas stations are literally the worst places to put EV chargers. Just mandate that every employer with &gt;50 employees has X chargers, Y of which must be publicly accessible.

&gt; Gas stations would be required to provide 50 kilowatts of charging power — enough for one DC fast charger.<p>Convenience is greatly sacrificed if only one charger is installed — it&#x27;ll be a gamble if your local gas station has their charger free, etc., which makes planning on when to charge tricky. As many gas stations are likely to only invest the bare minimum to avoid this fee, this could become a common frustration if this goes ahead.

&gt; It also estimated $1.7 million in revenues for the city from the increased license fees.<p>Are they going to use that money to install EV charging stations?

&gt; Modelling provided to the city estimated that about 30 per cent of gas stations and 40 per cent of parking lots would install chargers by 2030<p>Basically, they expect the majority of gas stations and parking lots to just pay the fee instead. Pretty solid indictment of the economics of installing chargers when even a 10k&#x2F;year penalty isn&#x27;t enough to tip the scale.

I wonder how many will buy the cheapest compliant EV charger they can find and just hang a permanent “out of order” sign on it.

I like this approach a lot better than the municipal curb-side charging stations that a lot of cities are building. The former naturally scales up and down with overall demand for cars, while the latter further entrenches cars as the dominant transportation method by making it virtually impossible to convert those curb spaces to other uses.

Where are these urban gas stations going to provide EV parking?

Legally will never happen. Will be challenged and while maybe they reserve the right to approve new locations with this (minor) stipulation not going to take existing businesses and wack them with a $10k fee like this. And forgetting the purpose or the reason simply not what you do.

Waiting anywhere while your car is charging seems like an awful user experience. I&#x27;ve always imagined that a quick battery swap service would become the standard. Don&#x27;t know how feasible it is though, maybe someone can shed more light on that.

Gas stations sell gas but also the use of land. I doubt the economics are still going to work out when drivers are staying for 45+ minutes. EV charging likely needs higher value activities attached, like shopping, to subsidize the parking.

Putting new wine into old wineskins never works out well for the wine or the wineskins.

I feel like a carrot might be better here… and for places other than gas stations.<p>I think it is too early to go stick on everyone. Let alone some unfortunate malicious compliance that doesn’t help.

Intended outcome: more EV charging stations<p>Actual outcome: fewer gas stations

Any other highway locations would be better. Best thing about an EV is you fill up next to a restaurant or cafe. Never have to go to a gas station again

I get the idea, but a lot of gas stations do not have the real estate to host several cars parked and charging for a period of time.

I think gas stations should charge 10k annual fee to Vancouver for the inconvenience of having endless lines of cars waiting to park and take space to recharge for hours if they choose to install electric charging products.