Canadian Energy Podcast Series
The Energy Exchange |
Part 2: Plugged into energy opportunities

Jason: Hi. I'm Jason Hatcher, managing principal of Navigator's Calgary office.

Lorne: And I'm Lorne Rollheiser, a partner with Gowling WLG in Calgary.

Jason: Welcome to the second episode of The Energy Exchange. A podcast between Navigator and Gowling, where Lorne and I explore the energy transition in Canada and what it means for our industries, our climate change goals and our future. Today we've invited a special guest to join us for this episode as we dive into the world of electric vehicles, energy consumption and the accessibility of Canada's energy transition. Cara Clairman is the President and CEO of Plug 'n Drive, a non-profit that is accelerating the deployment of EVs to maximize their environmental and economic benefits. Cara has more than 20 years of experience working in the environmental and sustainability fields, including 12 years working at Ontario Power Generation. I should point out that Cara is currently driving the 100%25 electric Nissan Leaf as her personal car and the 100%25 electric Mitsubishi MiEV for business.

Lorne: Hi Cara and thanks for joining us. Why don't we just start with this conversation a little bit about what Plug 'n Drive is doing and kind of its place and status of the industry. If you can kind of give us that overview of what you're seeing at present, and we can kind of talk a bit about present and future, but I think we might as well start with present day and work forward from there.

Cara: Sure. Thanks, Lorne, so much for inviting me. So Plug 'n Drive's a non-profit. We're all about accelerating EV adoption, and we do that primarily through consumer outreach and education, which involves really a simple as butts and seats. We offer test drives at our facility in Toronto, which is like a, try to imagine science center meets car showroom, a facility where people can learn and test drive cars with no pressure to buy anything. Then we have sort of a roaming show, our mobile EV education trailer, meet out and about in various cities across Canada. So we just are out there trying to help those consumers make the switch.

Jason: Cara, you guys have been around actually for I think over a decade now. I guess the question I would say is, or ask you is, you must have seen so much change and how excited are you about kind of where we are now, because I'm not sure I saw a lot of EVs 10 years ago, if I recall.

Cara: That's true and in those early days we definitely got a lot of blank stares when we would pop up at Yonge-Dundas Square, the Green Living Show. We had two cars and a charger trying to show people what the future might look like. It's definitely gotten a lot easier. I wish I could say it had changed as much as I would like to have seen it change. I still find a lot of consumers have the very same questions they had 10 years ago, and same concerns, and so lots of hesitations. The pluses is we have way more choice, more opportunities for different makes and models. Lots of infrastructure available so really there's absolutely no reason now for people not to make the switch but I still find myself in the position of convincing people that it's time.

Lorne: I wanted to talk a bit about that. There's a couple of spots here. Jason and I have talked about carrots and sticks and associated carrots that might be offered for EV and EV adoption. Cost, I think has been an obstacle. I think that's an obstacle that's being worked on. But I'm kind of curious about your views on obstacles because as you've said, it's improved over the course of time, and I think we all see it trending, continuing to trend in that direction. I'm kind of curious about your views as the sort of the biggest options that need to be worn down and what kind of progress we're making on those.

Cara: Yeah. I would say, we did some surveying over the years, so we've been able to see the trends. A few years ago there were a lot more concerns about range and concerns about makes and models. There isn't one that I like. I'm waiting for the SUV. I'm a fan of Toyota and they don't have it. There were those types of concerns and I would say those have really reduced and they're going away. We're seeing every brand pretty much has a car and plans for many, many more. So that we hear less and less about the range. The batteries have really improved. So many vehicles with 300, 400 even 500 kilometers of range. That's going away as an issue. Infrastructure is really improving. We still need to do work on that but it's definitely a lot better than it was. Price remains a challenge. It's been a challenge all along even though EVs are much cheaper to operate than gas cars and when you do the full math on the total cost of ownership, they're actually cheaper today even without incentives, but the challenge is explaining to people to pay now to save later. That's just not an easy story to tell so we've tried all sorts of things to try to show the savings but that's a big, big challenge still.

Jason: I'd like to dive into that a little more, Cara. We know that the government has got some great goals out there, I think as much as 50%25 of cars that are going to be sold in Canada, they're hoping by 2035 would be EVs.

Cara: 100%25.

Jason: 100%25, sorry. Yes, I said 50.

Cara: 100%25 by 2035. Yeah.

Jason: 2035. You talk about those barriers and that upfront outlay of cash. Well not all Canadians can afford that outlay out front. So how do we avoid, as we develop this industry and get to that 100%25, how do we avoid leaving people behind? In the weeks and months that have proceeded this podcasts we've seen lots of division in North America, in Canada here as well, and when you think about the needs of maybe Canadians don't have the same income that other's might in order to do that, and also, some of the needs of rural Alberta and supporting some of the industry farms, the agriculture, how do we overcome those challenges?

Cara: Sure. Here's what I would say is, there's a lot of Canadians who can't afford a new car, period. Gas or electric. So that's a challenge no matter what kind of car and what I would say on that is there's a few things we can do. First of all, used EVs are available and affordable. A lot of people don't realize there's quite a good selection of used EVs available now. We've been in the market 10 years. There's quite a bit. So that's one opportunity, and we've been really pushing the governments to have a rebate on used, because it's more affordable for more people and provides sort of that more equitable answer. So that's one thing. In terms of new, there's opportunities with rebates from governments which definitely help with that upfront cost, and another thing is better leasing and financing rates from banks. There's really right now, actually, EVs are more expensive to finance than a gas car. The reason is because they can. Because they're in high demand and people are willing to pay it but there's really no justification for it. So we'd like to see some progressive financing. We know that EVs, you save over time, so why not a financing that instead of starting high and ending low, starts low and ends high? There's ways to finance a vehicle that might be more affordable.

Lorne: Those are really nuts and bolts practical things that I think the individual consumer obviously looks at day to day. I want to turn a little bit to the more macro side of this about the grid and the energy distribution piece of this. The Ford F-150, I watched it actually on YouTube when they rolled it out, I thought that was pretty cool.

Cara: Pretty cool.

Lorne: Obviously one of the cool things that I didn't see coming. I don't watch the auto industry that closely but sort of the ability about it being a battery storage element was quite interesting to me. I wonder about the grid, I guess I've got kind of two questions, one is what is your thought about widespread adoption of EVs and the grids current capabilities of handling that, and does the potential of vehicles being battery storage units solve the problem, assuming that that actually is a problem. I'm kind of curious what you can share with people about that. It's a real game changer in my mind.

Cara: It is. So first on the grid. I come from the electricity sector so this is something that I do follow and in most parts of the country, not everywhere, but in most parts of the country generation is not really a problem, at least not right now. It doesn't mean it won't be at some point. But let's just take Ontario where I am. Ontario has a huge surplus on the grid at night because we run nuclear and hydro which runs pretty much 24/7, so when you shutdown everything over the daytime and you get to nighttime, we have a surplus that we in fact dump into New York State, into Michigan and into Quebec at a loss of money, pretty much every night. So actually people plugging in their EVs at night, which is of course when they will do it because that's when it's convenient, that's when it's cheapest, that actually does the grid a favour. That it sucks up that surplus base load. It helps to balance out the use of the assets, the energy assets. It provides money to the local economy. There's a whole bunch of good things that it does. In fact, it's actually a grid benefit a this point. At some point we won't have a big surplus at night. Pickering's going to come out of service in a certain number of years and other jurisdictions don't necessarily have the surplus at night that we have here in Ontario. At some point it's a problem. But what I will tell you right now is it isn't and the only problems there are, are very localized in terms of distribution networks, in the older cities. So take Toronto, take Ottawa, Kingston. There's some areas of the grid that have difficulties because they're old and it just requires good planning. Some transformers will have to be upgraded, but that can totally be managed if the utility knows where the EVs are, which they don't necessarily know right now. So that's something that they have to work on finding out so that they can plan.

Jason: Do you see that planning taking place now, Cara? I appreciate your focus in Ontario and I think that's going to be one of the key leads, obviously, in this but when we think about the overhaul that you described, or at least in part, working on transformers, updating the grid in the necessary areas plus that 100%25 coming by 2035, that's soon. Electrical generation and electrical projects, will they be SMRs, small nuclear reactors, or hydro? These aren't facilities that are built quickly and if takes off the way you're hoping we're going to see a real spike.

Cara: Yes.

Jason: You know where this conversation then goes vis a vis fossil fuel.

Cara: Right.

Jason: So what do we see as the future?

Cara: Look, yes, there will be a requirement for new generation. For sure. I sort of say, okay. That's fine as long as we can plan for it. We would have to use fossil fuels or we have to build more generation and I would vote for building more generation, especially if we can make it low to no greenhouse gas emitting. So it's doable. It requires, as you say, planning. You have to look across the country, at the assets available, what makes sense where. Solar doesn't make sense everywhere. Wind doesn't make sense everywhere. Hydro's good in certain areas. Some places just don't have it. But Lorne brought up this issue of fee to ... and potentially using the car batteries as a way to actually support the grid, and I think it's actually going to be not just good to do, it's going to be a must to do because first of all, I saw just a fascinating presentation from a fellow named, Professor Dahn, who is the Tesla research Chair, I believe, at Dalhousie. He was showing that something like 90%25 of the lithium around the world is going right now into EV batteries. So if we're going to have storage of any kind a lot of it is already going to be in car batteries. We won't be able to just rely on other storage or other batteries. There's not going to be enough batteries for that. We need to use the car batteries. Also, just from an economics point of view, you can imagine it's much cheaper to create battery storage where someone else has already paid for the battery. So that's an affordable source of storage. So really it will make sense, it will make economic sense, it will make every kind of sense to take advantage of those batteries and aggregate them and use them for peaking, for example, or use them to prevent the building of the next gas plant, for example. So that is definitely going to be necessary.

Lorne: I think one of the key problems that has been for greentech energy generation is storage. I am not a technical guy that's for sure. I'm a lawyer so some of it kind of rubs off when you hang out with a lot of engineers, I guess, but the smaller batteries, you know the idea of if you could just get a good battery, if you could get energy storage sorted out, then you get rid of some of these issues about intermittent production and peaks and these sorts of things get solved. Now, if you've broken the problem down into sort of these small modular pieces of, everybody's got a battery in their car and everybody's got a car so that's how we're going to solve it. That's why I describe it earlier as that's a real game changer. But, again, it goes back to the, I'll just focus on the carbon part of it, the carbon part is as good only as the generation that's used to power the grid and this, to my mind at least, has us in an "all of the above" kind of scenario because the demand is, to my mind, where the bigger struggle is. There's significant investment that's going to be required, I think. We've kind of talked about this. You sort of, I think, are on this path which is smaller cities, older cities, rural applications. The grid works better in some places than others. These are high capital long term investments. It needs a lot. That's all fine but that grid investment has to be powered and the energy that comes to power the grid is, for at least a foreseeable period of time from where I sit, is going to be an "all of the above" but transitioning away.

Cara: Right. Right.

Lorne: Fossil fuels are not renewable. That is just the way it is.

Cara: If you look at it though, Canada's in a really good position because we have about 80%25 of Canada wide electricity is already, what they will say. Nothing is zero. So I don't like saying non-emitting. But that's the terminology so let's just call it non-emitting electricity. So that's hydro, that's nuclear, that's wind, that's solar, biomass, that's everything except let's say oil, coal and gas. So we're already at 80%25. Ontario got off coal. Alberta and Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia all have plans to get off it. What we're seeing, there's very few vehicles, you can imagine. People say it doesn't make sense to drive an EV in Alberta. That isn't true because even in Alberta the whole grid isn't fossil. There's plenty of other sources and it's reducing every year. So every year you drive your EV gets a little bit cleaner. You still make an emission reduction. You just don't make the giant emission reduction that you make if you drive an EV in Quebec or Ontario or British Columbia.

Jason: Right. So to address some of these issues, and I hate spending so much time on barriers, because the idea here is also to look forward. But going back to Lorne's comments about carrots and stick. It's the great old age old debate for when we look at government. Do you feel that if we have enough carrots, if you will, and not just on the incentive side to buy the vehicles, but also to build out that infrastructure, to start looking at the future needs for electrical generation across the country to get some uniformity to the grid, or do we need more sticks? Where do you see the future and does the government, are they giving enough, or do they have to, how does it work in your mind?

Cara: They're doing a lot of good things. I want to first sort of give them a little bit of props because they're really funding the building of infrastructure across Canada, Enercan is. They've got the rebates which really do help. The big challenge we have I would say is there's a lot of inequity across the country because you have Provinces with Provincial rebates that stack with the Federal rebate. That would be primarily Quebec and British Columbia, and actually now PEI and a few others, but they're just getting started. Then you have the Provinces that don't have that. If you want to buy an EV in Alberta, in Manitoba or in Ontario, for example, you're actually going to have a hard time finding one because they supply is all going to the rebate Provinces. So when you see, for example, a new car being launched in Canada they say, launching in Quebec and British Columbia because that's where they know they'll sell, because they've got two levels of rebates. It would be really nice to level the playing field across the country so that everybody would have an opportunity to get MiEVs. One of the things they can do to do that is what they call a ZEV standard, or a ZEV mandate, and what that means is if you want to sell gas cars you have to sell a certain percentage of EVs. That would require dealers to have them on the lots which is what they do in California and they have that in British Columbia and it works. So that's one thing they can do. Another area where I think we could really use some national support is the building code. You can't believe it's true but here in Ontario you can still build a condo or an apartment building without any infrastructure in the parking garage. There's no requirement even to rough it in. Here in Toronto, and in many other urban centers, a very high percentage of people live in multi-unit. So if you really want people to buy EVs you cannot have a situation where they can't get a plug at their parking spot.

Jason: Sorry to interrupt, Cara, but it must be a lot more expensive to then kind of put it in after the fact. Is it?

Cara: It's like times 10. It's roughing in is just putting the cable so that you can do it. You don't even have to put the chargers in, but if you rough in when you build a building, it is so much cheaper and only makes sense. So that could go into the National Building Code, which could then be sort of trickled to all the Provincial building codes, which really, really needs to happen. It's already happened in some Provinces but, for example, here in Ontario we don't have that requirement.

Lorne: That might carry us to a larger discussion about rising housing costs and inflation in Canada. But let's let that one aside because that's a whole other topic.

Cara: Another podcast.

Lorne: Another podcast, exactly. We've talked a lot about national. I wonder if you've got thoughts or comments about the auto industry here. US and Canada are hand in glove associated with the auto industry and I'm wondering if you've got thoughts about whether it's global or whether it's Canada/US, but how that progress is being made, or any things you see on the horizon that people might be interested in learning about them in the EV world that they might not otherwise already have some knowledge of.

Cara: Sure. The good news on the manufacturing front is that there's been a lot of great announcements about manufacturing EVs here in Canada. So we have announcements from the Big 3 American companies all saying they're going to be making EVs here. That's Ford, GM and Stellantis, who was Chrysler, all announcing that within a year or two their plants will be manufacturing EVs. Which is great news for the auto sector here in Canada. The less good news is this clause that was in the Build Back Better Bill which was, right now it looks like it's not happening, but they were saying that the US was going to have a buy American about the EVs so that only the EVs that were made in US plants would actually get the US rebate. The vehicles we make in Canada, 90%25 of them go to the States. So that would have been a huge blow to the Canadian manufacturers and probably if it went ahead, some of those announcements we heard might not have ended up in reality happening. I hope the Build Back Better does happen but I hope that clause will not go ahead. I hope that will be a North American, buy North American, not buy American because as you said it's all integrated. It's impossible to separate these two.

Lorne: Some classic issues of competition and trade, and hadn't thought of until you brought that up, but I think that's an important thing to make note of is there is common interest but there's also competition and trade issues that impact all this. That's very helpful.

Cara: On top of that, I think sometimes we hear the Ontario government talking about their manufacturing support, which honestly is fantastic, but I think sometimes they're confused in that they think that doing that is actually support for people buying EVs here in Ontario, and I actually think they're completely separate. It's a great business strategy. It's excellent for the auto sector. It's great jobs. It's an industrial strategy. But it doesn't automatically mean because we manufacture EVs here in Canada, people will buy them here. We have to still do more things to support people actually switching or else all those cars will go to the US or elsewhere. So we still need to do things like incent people. We need to have, like I said, building code changes. We need to have free access to HOV lanes, and other incentives, non-monetary incentives to encourage people to make the switch.

Jason: So, Cara, in the time that we have left here tell us what the next 15 years look like, as we head towards 2035. I'm going to ask you to put on, to look in your crystal ball, which is plugged in. It's not being run by ... but if you could look into that and just sort of tell us what you think what the next 15 years looks like.

Cara: I think we have reasons to be really optimistic. I think that 100%25 by 2035 is actually achievable. In fact, I'm part of a coalition of companies that are talking about 100%25 by 2030. When I say 100%25 it's 100%25 new sales. We're not saying that all the gas cars will be gone. Of course they won't be. But in addition to the great opportunity and, don't forget all the amazing sort of ancillary benefits that come with that switch which include, health, public health benefits. When you start switching you take a huge bite out of air pollution which actually reduces asthma, reduces hospital visits, reduces deaths. But there's studies all over the world showing the health benefit. So we're going to get a whole bunch of ancillary benefits we haven't calculated. We're going to also see electrification of buses and trucks and that's a huge, huge emission reducer as well. So it's not just light-duty, right? It's medium and heavy-duty, delivery, school buses. A massive opportunity. There's something like 10,000 school buses driving a day just in Ontario alone. So it's a huge opportunity. They don't drive very far. They have a predictable route. They're perfect for electrification. So I think we're going to see a lot of these other areas electrified, maybe even faster than light-duty, and of course we'll see the urban/suburban do it quicker than rural. But I just want to say for the folks that think you can't do it, if you live rural, you totally can! I have a place out in the country. It's totally doable. Most of us, the stats will tell you 80%25 of Canadians drive 50 kilometers or less a day, even people who live remote. They don't drive that much. They drive into town. So they drive less than they think. They make long trips when they make them but those are occasional. So many Canadian families have two cars but this often not a huge barrier. So I think more and more with the economic savings that people will start to realize, more and more people make the switch and I think people will get comfortable with it. I'm really quite optimistic about that.

Jason: So, Cara, as we finish up here tell us what are your sort of top 3 or 5 myths you'd like to dispel and I'll start you off. When Lorne mentioned earlier and that is cold weather issue.

Cara: Like every good myth there is a grain of truth in there, right? That's how it develops. So there is truth that your range is reduced in the winter. That is a fact. By the way, it's true in a gas car too, but you can just refill with a gas car. People are more concerned about it with an EV because of infrastructure or worrying about where they're going. What I try to tell people is, look. You've got to look at what you really do in a day, not a mythical number of kilometers that you imagine you need. So people think I need 600 kilometers because that's what I'm used to in my gas tank. But typically how much do you drive in a day. So if you're a person who drives 100 kilometers a day, and you have a car with a 300 kilometer battery, even on the worst winter day you're never going to get close to that range. You're going to be fine. So you have to kind of think more about what you actually do then I think in a gas car where you don't have to plan as much. So it is a true statement that your range will be less and you just have to be aware of how far you're going to go.

Jason: Any other of your favourite myths you'd like to leave us with?

Cara: I do think people think they drive a lot farther than they do. Maybe it's because we, in the city, we sit in a lot of traffic so we think that we are driving far but we're just actually driving long. We're not actually going very far and when EVs sit and idle they don't use very much energy. So your range is actually good. What we found is when we actually have people track how far they drive, they don't drive very far. So that means an EV could fit into people's lives a lot more than they think. The other thing I would say about that is so many Canadian families have two cars and so if you're worried about a road trip, which Canadians love their road trips. Which is great. I love the road trip as much as anyone else, but that road trip could be managed, depending with an EV, but if you're concerned about it, take the other car. Rent a car. Take the train. Do something else because maybe it's twice a year. Maybe it's three times a year and with the money you save, it'll be worth it. So we try to get people to think about the 99%25 and not the 1%25.

Lorne: That's really good to hear. It's very interesting to catch up with you and talk about the things that you're most plugged into, to use Plug 'n Drive's name associated with this, so thanks very much for your time today. Really appreciate it and it's been very valuable.

Cara: My pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Jason: Thanks so much, Cara.

Lorne: So, Jason, do you have any sort of concluding thoughts or takeaways from today's discussion?

Jason: Really interesting discussion and there's so much happening in this space and happening so quickly. What it feels to me though is that it's really important that we have an honest dialogue about this in the country. About the opportunities that this brings. We talked a lot about that with Cara, particularly on the pollution side, even the noise side. If you imagine the reduction in din in cities if you eliminated combustion cars. But at the same time I think we have to be honest about the challenges because there are some potential inequities. We could see the infrastructure getting left behind a little bit in rural Canada or in certain areas of the country. I think of Canadians that can't afford electric cars now but also maybe can't afford the housing that comes along with the requirements for electrical hookups and that sort of thing. So this really permeates into some really important issues for us. How are we going to generate that electricity as the need increases? Are we going to be comfortable with fossil fuels that is perhaps carbon free, through things like CCUS and the like that we've talked about previously, Lorne, and at the same time how do we make sure that nobody in Canada gets left behind? Not a region or not a people and this doesn't become a white collar/blue collar thing or a rich and poor thing for those who have access. It's going to be really interesting to have that discussion develop.

Lorne: To me this really continues to fit in with the "and" context.

Jason: Yes.

Lorne: Which is it's a transition which does not happen instantaneously, far from it. It happens over the course of quite an extended period of time. When you're talking about things like replacing and/or upgrading the grid, a lot of capital. A lot of planning. A lot of time that it takes. Again, to be accused possibly of being overly optimistic I think, the "and" aspect of this is what's most interesting to me because there's fossil fuels that are produced and used and help run our economy now

Jason: Exactly

Lorne: and we are going to be developing future technology, current and future technology, that's going to come into the stream and that stream is growing, in my view at least. I don't think there's anybody that really argues that satisfactorily, and that growth has got to be taken up, and to a great extent that can be and likely will be taken up by green. But these streams are coming together and then the future will be what it is. That is a long term. These issues are long term issues. They require a lot of policy consideration. The require a lot of forward planning and then possibly replanning and re-do of the policy.

Jason: I'm hearing dollar signs. I'm hearing dollar signs, Lorne. We've got to look at how we create, I know we're going to talk about this going forward, how we create that investment environment so that the private sector, because governments can't afford to do all of this when we're talking about everything from generation to the infrastructure required to distribute it. Will it be acceptable for fossil fuels if they're produced cleanly with no carbon footprint, or very low carbon footprint, why can't they play a role. Shouldn't they be a big part of it? It's a complex issue and we're going to continue to unpack it going forward, I guess.

Lorne: Yeah, absolutely. There's so much to discuss.

Jason: On behalf of Lorne, and myself, I want to extend a huge thank you to our guest, Cara Clairman, for joining us here today and for her work in making EVs more accessible for Canadians. It was a great conversation that I hope we see more of in our country. I also want to say a big thank you to our team of course, behind the scenes, including Anne Derby, Ian Mondrow of Gowling and my team at Navigator including, Catherine Moar, Kayla Doody and Zoe Keirstead. Stay tuned for next weeks episode where we have some international guests to talk energy litigation.