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List of all EVs available in Canada, with C$ pricing, from PlugNDrive.ca.

September is the time of National Drive Electric Week, and our nearest event for 2023 was in Waterloo via WREVA, and will be again in the fall of 2024. Here’s my shot of the hundred or so EVs brought out by their owners. There was a Rivian, 2 Ford F150 Lightnings (one making pancakes for attendees on an electric griddle running of the pickup’s battery) and at least one 'Stang, various Hyundai, Kia, Volvo and PoleStar both, Vinfast, VW, Smart, and a BMW i3 (apologies if I missed any). It was a beautiful day, so perhaps a lot of people who might have attended were out camping or canoeing; we spent more time in talking to other EV owners than with potential purchasers, and in making our Tesla sing and dance in coordination with others.

Battery EVs run on pure electricity, unlike hybrids which use a mix of gasoline and electricity. Batteries need recharging, so here’s a look at the various charging standards and how they work. Don’t be put off by the variety of levels and plugs; the bottom line is that almost any EV you buy in North American can be charged almost anywhere!

Let’s just assume that this was found in somebody’s great-grandparents' collection of news clippings from the 1910’s.

While showing off my Tesla Model 3 at a car show last week, somebody told me that they’d been told that EVs were passe, that hydrogen was the up-and-coming power source. I just laughed, and explained several reasons that hydrogen’s a non-starter. Two obvious ones include the lack of distribution, and the fact that it takes as much energy to split the water into hydrogen as you get back when you re-combine them.

I’ve been saying for most of a decade that EVs are both cheaper and more efficient than their gasoline- or diesel-smoking companions. I’ve posted several articles confirming this over the years. Here is the latest one from early 2024, Electric vehicles use half the energy of gas powered vehicles. This article from Yale University - to nobody’s great surprise - still says the same thing. EVs are just plain better.

I love my Model 3. I really do. But just as you can love someone while wishing they’d change certain habits or style, there are a few things I don’t like about my car. One or two of these may be "things I have missed", but most are verified problems.

The list is organized into these sections:

Why should car drivers have all the fun? There are now scads of all-electric motorcycles available (or in preview for near-term release) and some of them are listed here. This chart focusses primarily on the US market. Excluded are all electric bicycles ("e-bikes") as that segment of the market has way too many players for me to even try to keep up. Also excluded are most mopeds/scooters, except at the high end. Perhaps even doing motorcycles is even a fool’s errand, but at least I’ll try. Here goes.

Science tells us with certainty that dinosaurs and humans did not walk the earth at the same time, nor within 4,000 years of each other.

And yet, ye have heard the dinosaurs roar! Certain walking-dead, or should I say rolling dead-creations, that is. The throaty roar from their over-powered engines and their undersized mufflers, racing around town showering the world with testosterone-induced showoffishness, and carcinogens and sooty toxins that damage and kill people.

We need to continue electrifying all modes of transport, to get rid of noise, carcinogenic fumes, pollution and climate-damaging emissions. Water craft being cleaned range from the smallest dingy with an outboard, to the overnight cabin cruiser, to the hundred foot yacht, up to commercial ferries and even oil tankers and container ships. That’s pretty much also the order they have been or will be electrified. While I’d known about Silent Yachts and a few others, I was a bit surprised by how much progress had been made recently, when I went to look at the PlugBoats "Gussies" election ballot. You should have a look.

The title pretty well sums it up. Although Toronto’s Metrolinx notoriously chose to build a diseasel-powered line from downtown to the airport, saying "we’ll electrify it someday" (but they haven’t), parts of Europe are of course heavily into electrification, but are now taking the final step with battery electrics. "A lithium-ion battery pack is mounted under the train’s floor and is charged while it moves along via overhead lines, using them to both power the train and charge the battery. When the train reaches a stretch of rail with no overhead lines, the battery takes over." Sounds pretty sensible, as long as the range is calculated correctly.