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April 18: No free lunch for electric cars

Re: “Ministers ignore costs of electric cars,” April 16. The writer identified only a few of the costs being off-loaded in the manufacture, acquisition and maintenance of electric vehicles.

Re: “Ministers ignore costs of electric cars,” April 16.

The writer identified only a few of the costs being off-loaded in the manufacture, acquisition and maintenance of electric vehicles. The manufacturing of EV batteries uses expensive and scarce elements, a large amount of which are sourced from other countries by some unscrupulous companies using slave or child labour.

As the writer pointed out, the purchase incentives and rebates are paid for by all of the taxpayers of Canada, not some anonymous benefactor.

The reason, in part, for the lower operating costs is that recharging of electric vehicles is often done at free or highly subsidized, publicly funded stations.

Likewise, charging at a residence is carried out at residential electrical rates, which are kept artificially low to ease the burden of fluctuating electricity bills for homeowners, and are also subsidized by all taxpayers who foot the bill for controversial and environmentally disruptive projects such as the Site C dam.

We have access to cleaner hydroelectric power in this country, but if we all were to switch to electric vehicles, potentially many Site C dams would have to be constructed to meet the demand.

With the current rate of global warming and the potential impact on weather changes that could disrupt water flows for large hydroelectric projects, those projects might turn out to be non-starters.

The increasing demand created by charging vehicles from the residential grid could also result in expensive upgrades to the supply infrastructure.

There is no free lunch, except when you’re on everyone else’s tab.

Mike Wilkinson

Duncan