Electric vehicle owners avoid carbon-tax sticker shock at gas pumps

Most New Brunswick motorists are still dealing with carbon-tax sticker shock at the gas pumps after the 4.42 cents per litre hike earlier this week, but not Tom McLean.

He has ownedan electric vehicle, of EV,for nearly five years and says he lost track of fluctuating gas prices long ago.

Itcostsabout $2 to "fill up" his Nissan Leaf at his home in Fredericton, he said.

That buys him up to 120 kilometres of driving.

"So it's ample for in town, even jaunts down to Saint John."

Plugged in at home, or at a regular commercialcharging station, which costs $1.50 an hour, it takesabout four hours to fully charge the battery.

A full charge usually isn't necessary for day-to-day driving, said McLean.

Using a fast-charging station,which costs $15 per hour, he can charge the battery to about 80 per cent within 20 minutes.The province is expected to have29 fast chargersby the end of the year, including one in Fredericton by the end of May.

The battery chargesslower after80 per cent, so it's usually faster and cheaper not to fully charge the battery at a fast charger.

Maintenance? "Practically nothing," said McLean, just an annual battery check.

And the best partother than reducing his carbon footprint, which is what inspired him to go electric is that it's a "real fun car to drive."

"It's peppy," he said. So much so that he had to train himself not to press the accelerator too hard, even though it's only100 horsepower, about half the power of the 2010 Toyota Camryhe was used to driving.

He also enjoys the "single-pedal driving" of just pressing less on the accelerator to slow down without having to brake, even going down a hill.

"You get back in the Camry and it's like, 'Ohman, I'vegot to move my foot from the accelerator to the brake? What a pain.'"

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McLean and his wife kept the Camryas a second vehicle, planning to use it for longer trips, but it "sat in the yard growing cobwebs," he said.

"We just wanted to drive the Leaf instead." They've racked up about 69,000 kilometres since then, including a trip along the South Shore of Nova Scotia.

The trip required some planning tolocatetheEV charging stations along the route, he said, but it all went smoothly, as they drove about100 kilometres at a time, and then recharged while they explored.

McLean acknowledged winter weather reducesthedriving range of the EVby 20 to 30per cent, depending on whether theypreheat it or not, but aphone app makes that easy.

And he said they spend less timecharging their car than most people spend pumpinggas.

"It takes 10 seconds to plug it in and 10 seconds to unplug it. That's it."

McLean is so sold on EVs, he just got rid ofthe Camryand is getting a new Tesla Model 3 EV delivered later this month. It has a range of 385 kilometres.

The Tesla Model 3 has a starting price of $47,600 Cdn, according to the Tesla website.

McLeancontends interest in EVs is on the rise in the province.

TheNew Brunswick EV Owners Facebook group, started in 2017,has about 60 members and has been growing "on a pretty steady clip," said McLean, who is one of the administrators.

Not all of the membersare owners, he said. Someare just interested in learning more about what it's like to drive EVs.

"I think that's one of the biggest barriers people understanding that it's really not that hard," said McLean.

"I often say that you can think there's lotsof ways that it won't work for you, but the trick is to try to think of the ways that it will work. And actually, they're pretty nice."