This week Nile vents his frustration at Ontario's EV charging infrastructure after spending several weeks with EV and PHEVs.

Help support PRN with a monthly subscription. Supporters get exclusive access to content, including exclusive behind the scenes content, IRL update videos, member badges, and more! Find out more by Joining now    / @prntestdrive  

Here on TestDrive we've been at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution, featuring over 50 fully electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles over the years, including used EVs and how they've held up. We've even owned our own EV before, so we know how to live with these, and life in Ontario, Canada isn't a walk in the park. Compared with Québec, Canada's largest province isn't in a good position to increase it's load of EVs with the current charging infrastructure.

First we talk about the overall cost to install an electric vehicle charger at home in 2023 versus how much it was 5 years earlier. Then we dive into the major problem, the charging infrastructure. According to the Government of Canada, Ontario and Québec have a similar number of charging locations, that means a place that has one or more publicly accessible EVSEs. Québec has approximately 3,869 locations, Ontario has approximately 3,047. Despite the closeness, Québec's infrastructure relies on one major advantage, all the charging networks communicate with one another.

In Québec you can use essentially any EV charging app of your preference and access almost every charger available to the public. We found that Electrify Canada's network and Petro-Canada were still disconnected, but charging networks from Circuit Electrique, the Province of Québec's EV infrastructure provider, worked great with Flo, our main app. We never had to worry about accessing the charger of a different network as it always worked.

Fly on over to Ontario and it's a completely different story. Most apps don't share their grid, meaning EV owners need to download and maintain several if not half-a-dozen apps when looking for a place to charge. You need to link credit cards and update balances on each individual app, and searching for a place to charge becomes an annoyance. Some apps like ChargeHub or Plug Share display information about all chargers, but you still need to download that network's app in order to access the station.

We go over some ways Ontario can get EV ready and our hope moving forward for the future of electrification in the province.

Follow PRN on Facebook:   / perpetualradio  
Follow Nile on Instagram:   / nilelivesey  
Follow James on Instagram:   / technically_cars  
Email Nile: [email protected]

TestDrive is proudly produced in Elgin County, Ontario, Canada.