Electric vehicle owners in Alberta are so pleased with their vehicles that they’d buy another one, according to a new survey.
Conducted for the Alberta Motor Association and Canadian Automobile Association, survey results showed that 97 per cent of Albertans were happy with their zero-emission vehicle, 96 per cent were likely to buy another electric vehicle, and 95 per cent said it was cheaper to operate than their previous gas or hybrid vehicle.
“For 95, 96, 97 per cent of people to agree on anything is remarkable,” said Dominic Schamuhn, AMA advocacy manager.
“It’s really valuable to have that data from so many people right here in the province.”
The survey was the largest of its kind and was conducted between Nov. 21 to Dec. 11, 2022 with 16,232 electric vehicle drivers, including 1,010 from Alberta. Respondents were current owners of battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
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The survey showed most Albertans had concerns about public charging (70 per cent), cold weather performance (69 per cent), and battery range (65 per cent) prior to buying an electric vehicle.
But after experiencing an electric vehicle, their confidence in cold weather performance increased 30 per cent, battery range confidence increased 37 per cent, and confidence in availability of public charging climbed 21 per cent.
“It doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement but it tells us that the experience overall in Alberta is pretty good,” Schamuhn said.
He said concerns about public charging are fair, but it’s based on the current state of availability.
“That’s where we are today and we know that there’s increasing investments from municipalities, from local communities, from businesses and other organizations so that public charging infrastructure is going to grow.”
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He said while electric vehicles haven’t reached mass adoption, there’s increasing curiosity and it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months and years.
AMA has electric vehicles that serve as battery trucks for emergency roadside charging, and electric vehicles in its driver education fleet.
“The reality is there are some kids learning how to drive today that are never going to drive an internal combustion engine vehicle, similar to the transition and switch folks made from a manual to an automatic transmission.”
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
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