London, Ont. adds to its growing list of electric vehicle chargers

The Forest City is inching closer to becoming an electric city as London, Ont., builds on a growing list of electric vehicle (EV) chargers.

City officials marked the occasion with a ribbon-cutting ceremony outside of Tourism London’s Welcome Centre, which features one of the 20 Level 2 EV charging ports now installed throughout London.

Remarks shared during Wednesday’s ceremony focused heavily on the environment, along with the issues that world leaders are attempting to tackle at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

When it comes to London, director of climate change, environment and waste management Jay Stanford says the city has a lot of work to do.

“We have a problem. The problem is burning gasoline and diesel in our personal vehicles, and that’s contributing to about 750,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas per year, about 30 per cent of our local emissions. It is our highest contribution,” Stanford said.

“There are 275,000 registered vehicles on the roads in London…. Electric vehicles are about 1,130 — just a tiny percentage.”

The city has been slowly growing its EV charging network since 2013, but Stanford says “now is the time to play leapfrog” and expand the network even further.

That expansion will require the help of ChargerCrew Canada, the Woodstock-based company responsible for installing and maintaining London’s charging ports.

Wednesday’s ceremony also touched on “range anxiety,” a term used to describe the fear of an electric vehicle running out of power before reaching its destination.

ChargerCrew Canada’s manager of electromobility Jurgen van Dijken says this term will soon be a thing of the past.

“In a couple of years, we won’t even talk about range anxiety anymore because we’ll have cars that drive 500- to 600-kilometre range on the battery,” van Dijken said.

“But today, we do need those chargers spread out across the city and Ontario to make sure that we get from A to B without being worried about running out of electricity.”

Van Dijken says once the civil engineering is in place, installing the charging ports is a fairly easy operation that requires little maintenance afterwards beyond checking for vandalism.

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It costs $0.04 per minute to use the charging stations, however the first five minutes are free. An hour of charging can add about 40 kilometres of range to a vehicle at a cost of $2.20.

As of Wednesday, charging stations in London can be found at the following locations, with more set to arrive within the next year:

• Tourism London Welcome Centre, 696 Wellington Rd. S.
• London Public Library, Jalna Branch, 1119 Jalna Blvd.
• RBC Convention Centre, 300 York St.
• Bostwick Community Centre, 501 Southdale Rd West.
• Medway Arena, 119 Sherwood Forest Sq.
• Kinsmen Recreation Centre, 20 Granville St.
• Stronach Community Recreation Centre, 1221 Sandford St.
• Stoney Creek Community Centre, YMCA and Library, 920 Sunningdale Rd. E.

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