Toronto’s looking at the future, and gasoline vehicles aren’t quite a fit for it. The city is entertaining a proposal for an Electric Vehicle Strategy that could make the city’s vehicles zero-carbon energy by 2050.

And it plans to do it with carrots rather than sticks under its TransformTO climate strategy, by making it easier and cheaper for drivers to plug in their cars rather than fill them with fuel.

A news brief from City Hall said vehicles generate more than one-third of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the city. Right now the strategy’s targeting passenger vehicles – cars, vans, trucks and SUVs – which it said generate 79 per cent of all transportation emissions, rather than commercial operations.

Under the program, the city will concentrate on four key objectives: increasing charging availability; addressing barriers to cost and convenience; increasing public awareness and education; and creating opportunities “that will benefit the local economy.”

Right now it’s got a long way to go, with less than 1 per cent of private vehicles in the city running on electricity. “Green” vehicle rebates are helping to boost sales in Quebec and British Columbia, but while Ontario motorists are eligible for a federal rebate of up to $5,000 when buying them, the then-incoming Conservative government ended the provincial rate – the country’s most generous at up to $14,000 – in 2018.

Just getting people to buy the vehicles isn’t enough. If the city wants to meet a goal of 20 per cent electrified vehicles by 2030 – and to 80 per cent by 2040 – it also has to ensure that there’s enough electricity, available in enough places, to keep them all running.

Toronto is working with more than 100 stakeholders, who include everything from automakers and charging station manufacturers, to property developers and gasoline companies. The TransformTO plan also includes programs and infrastructure to promote public transit, walking and cycling.

Plugged In Podcast

Electrify Canada is opening 32 public fast-charging stations in four provinces by the end of 2020. In our final episode of Season 2, we talk with company COO Robert Barrosa.

Plugged In is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.