Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, everybody, and thank you for having us here.
I'm the chairman of Electric Mobility Canada. I've been in this position for about six years now, and we've been advocating for the use of electric traction as an alternative to fossil fuel and as part of Canada's future for transportation. Over the past number of years electric traction has become very popular around the world. In fact, most G-8 countries around the world have adopted strategies and initiatives to put electric vehicles into everyday transportation use, both for consumers and commercial application. However, we've not been in that position here in Canada, and today I'd like to just go through a few things: some environmental economic opportunities, and then four recommendations, as proposed.
From an economic point of view, we've already heard that Canada has a very lucrative business in the development of OEM vehicles. We do know that very well. Our opportunity, and with electric traction as we go forward, is to continue to maintain those jobs and actually increase them. In the last little bit, the Chevy Volt has come out, and 20 companies in Ontario participated in the development of the Chevrolet Volt by providing components and engineering to that vehicle. The Ford Transit Connect electric vehicle was developed in Vancouver. It has created jobs in Vancouver and it continues to create jobs in this country.
A number of others have been announced. Toyota will be developing their RAV electric vehicle in Ontario. So we're really there as a player. We know we have the capabilities from a personnel point of view and our capabilities are great that way. We need to continue on with that by supporting it.
From an environmental point of view, electric vehicles, even in a province where we are not purely hydro, still produce a 30% improvement to the actual tailpipe. There are four provinces in the country where hydro-electricity is used. In that case we see a 95% improvement at the tailpipe. So from an environmental point of view, considering that transportation is about 28%, I believe, of gross GHGs, if we really want to make an impact, for sake of a better term, it's low-hanging fruit for us to really look at transportation as an area where we can make an impact today.
As far as the electric grid goes, back in 2009, with the grace of Industry Canada and Natural Resources Canada, we were championed to put together Canada's electric vehicle technology road map, which we delivered in 2010 and handed off to the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources. In that, we called for an aggressive target of 500,000 plug-in vehicles on the road in Canada by 2018, and this both in consumer and commercial application. If that were the case, we consulted with all of the utilities across the board, and there would be absolutely no need for any additional supply. What we would need is distribution. We need charging infrastructure and we need infrastructure, but we don't need to develop anything additional right now to get us to our early target. As we go down the road, yes, there will be a need for more. What we would like to see there is more renewable energy use.
The Government of Canada has been effective. They've worked with us on things, and we're thrilled that they've been there. They've also introduced a couple of programs that have supported the electrification of vehicles.
One other area is Canada's green highway. We're looking for Canada's green highway to go from coast to coast to coast and produce alternative fuel stations.
These are our recommendations, very quickly:
Number one is codes and standards. We need codes and standards and we need them quickly to get vehicles into the marketplace.
Number two is charging infrastructure. We would like to see a program put into place where home charging and commercial charging are supported by the federal government.
Our third recommendation is really a simple one, and that is that the federal government lead by example. In other jurisdictions fleets in the federal governments have really been looking at plug-in electric, battery electric, or hybrid electric vehicles in the best category.
Last is the promotion of the green highway from coast to coast to coast, building alternative fuel stations.
Thank you very much for your time.