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TORONTO – Ontario is offering to cover 80 per cent of the cost of installing electric vehicle charging stations for companies and commercial building owners as the province tries to expand its charging infrastructure.

The program, announced today, will cover most of the capital costs of installing Level 2 charging stations, which take between four and eight hours to fully charge an electric vehicle.

Employers and commercial building owners could get up to $7,500 per charging space.

The Liberal government has earmarked up to $5 million for the program out of cap-and-trade auction revenues.

READ MORE: Electric car subsidies in Ontario and Quebec costly and inefficient, report says

It says there are more than 1,300 public chargers operating in the province, though that includes just two-thirds of 500 stations promised by March 31, 2017 under a $20-million Electric Vehicle Chargers Ontario program.

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The government says an incentive program for home charging stations has doled out about $2.2 million since January 2013 for nearly 2,600 chargers