Evidence of meeting #42 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vehicles.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests.
I'm going to focus most of my questions on Mr. Clark.
I had a visit from Canada Post. My riding has recently consolidated all of the distribution facilities into one facility. It's a 10-acre site, so all the sorting goes on there, and all of the outbound mail—and inbound mail, I think—comes from that one location. I was visited by officials from Canada Post, and one of the things they advised me was that all the vehicles would be electric—which they're not. They are all very tiny postal vans. They're all gasoline vehicles, as far as I can tell, and my question is why not?
My second question is, why is it a 300% premium for you folks to buy a battery electric vehicle, but about a 50% premium for ordinary citizens?
Third, why do you need commercial charging facilities when you have a 50-kilometre route? Most vehicles will last 90 kilometres and they all come back to the same base. Have you built charging facilities onto this new site?
Sorry, but those are a lot of questions.
Director, Fleet Management, Canada Post Corporation
There are a lot.
First, I'm not sure who would have told you they would all be electric. Obviously, we don't have—
NDP
Director, Fleet Management, Canada Post Corporation
That's not correct, because our electric fleet is much smaller than that at this time.
I don't think we personally need, and I didn't mean to imply that we needed, commercial charging stations. I think that if the industry as a whole were to adopt more electric vehicles, it would require charging stations, because a lot of people commute, not unlike me, to and from work over distances greater than 80 or 90 kilometres. Wintertime, traffic delays, heat, windshield wipers, lights, all of these consume a lot more battery power—and getting to work and back would be almost impossible for me, personally.
So I meant that commercial charging stations would be for the mass public, not so much for Canada Post. You're right—our routes are approximately 50 kilometres a day, which is where the electric vehicles are today, and performing quite well. You mentioned something about the average consumer cost—
Director, Fleet Management, Canada Post Corporation
—of buying an electric vehicle being two times—
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
A Chevy Volt, for example, an electric vehicle, sells at a 50% premium, rather than—
Director, Fleet Management, Canada Post Corporation
We don't use passenger cars, so all I can say is that the commercial fleet that we are buying—perhaps in part because it has maybe not had as much investment as the Chevy Volt has.... There are not an awful lot of commercial, really large, electric vehicle users. Perhaps that's why the technology is expensive at this point and, of course, the larger the vehicle, the larger battery you need, the more weight you're adding, and a number of things like that.
So honestly, I don't know....
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Even the bus manufacturers are not suggesting it's a 300% premium—
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
—for a city bus. They're talking about a 50% to 75% premium to build an electric bus versus using diesel buses. So I'm curious as to why it's a 300% premium for Canada Post. I guess it's because nobody is building these yet.
Director, Fleet Management, Canada Post Corporation
Well, 300%, is that the same as three times?
Director, Fleet Management, Canada Post Corporation
It's okay. It just seemed like a lot.
Director, Fleet Management, Canada Post Corporation
Look, for example, at the eStar, which is one of our most recent battery electric vehicle purchases. It's a Class 2c-3 electric truck. It's very much like a parcel deliveries step van. The retail price of that unit—one that's not upfitted—is $150,000 U.S. That's just the going price today for that technology. That equivalent step van, for UPS or Canada Post or Purolator, would be in the range of about $45,000 to $50,000.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
But the little vehicles you're currently using on the road are not the.... The fleet has been replaced completely in my riding; there are no more step vans. Instead, there are the little—
NDP
Director, Fleet Management, Canada Post Corporation
Yes, it's roughly the same. I believe the Ford Transit Connect—I'm not sure what its market price is, but it's somewhere around $65,000 for us.
