Ontario charged up over electric cars

If you missed this story, its not for lack of trying by Canadian media, with coverage coming from CTV, The Globe and The Star (who claim to have broken the story back in September). The gist being that a pilot project will be launched with Better Places to start the construction of battery charging infrastructure in Ontario.

The project is both an infrastructure investment project, seen as a job creator these days, as well as an investment in forward looking high-tech jobs. It also starts that initial groundwork needed to convert our fleets of petrol-powered automotives (Car 1.0) into those fancy new plugin hybrid or electric vehicles (Car 2.0).

From the Province’s Press Release:

California-based Better Place will establish a Canadian head-office in Ontario. They will build an electric car demonstration and education centre in Toronto to lay the groundwork to help get electric vehicles running on Ontario roads. By May 2009, the Ontario government will release a study which will look at ways to speed up the introduction of electric vehicles including:

• Financial incentives designed to encourage the purchase of electric vehicles
• Preferred access to transportation grid to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles
• Forward looking procurement policies to speed government adoption of electric vehicles into fleet services where appropriate
• Coordinated public education and promotion of electric vehicles as a mode of personal transportation.

At the same time, Better Place will develop an electric car charging network rollout plan and timelines.

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