Teslas are still relatively rare on the streets of Prince George and if you do see one, you’ll probably think it looks like the kind of four-door sedan you see every day driving to the grocery store.
But if you’ve ever taken one out for a test drive, your perception of electric cars will forever be changed. Under that calm mom-and-dad exterior lies the guts and raw power of an exotic sports car that can have you ripping down the road from a stop to 100 kilometres an hour in less than five seconds.
Gord Holmes hasn’t bought his first electric vehicle (EV) yet, but he’s getting close to that stage and was among dozens of people who dropped by The Exploration Place parking lot on Oct. 16 to check out an assortment of about 25 EVs in the Electric Vehicle Experience car show.
Sponsored by Emotive, a provincial program funded by the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, the event was supported by the Prince George Electric Vehicle Association, a group of EV owners who showed up to talk about their vehicles, answer questions and offer test drives.
Holmes first drove an EV on a trip to Vancouver, where he dropped by the Tesla dealership to test-drive a Model X, and he encourages anyone even remotely interested in going electric to do the same. A car rental agency in Kelowna rents EVs exclusively and that’s another option for curiosity-seekers. Holmes is retired from his job at Environment Canada as a lake and stream water surveyor and he’s highly motivated to buy a vehicle that does not run on fossil fuel.
“I’ve been sold for a long time, and when this came out it was just a matter of when,” said Holmes. “I’ve watched Elon Musk for years and watched Tesla grow and I’m super-impressed with the quality. The safety on these things is way through the roof. The prices are high but they’re coming down hard. I think the biggest challenge for every car manufacturer right now is battery manufacturing. Securing the resources to get the batteries made is slowing them down.
“The chemistries are changing in these batteries and they’re needing less and less of these rare metals. They’re finding they can substitute iron for one of the (metals) that’s in them and still get the performance.”
Holmes wants a truck to haul the gear his family likes to take to their cabin on Cluculz Lake and he’s still undecided whether he’s going to buy a Tesla Cybertruck or the Ford Lightning. The Cybertruck body is a dent-resistant stainless-steel exoskeleton that won’t rust and weighs less than conventional car bodies. The window glass used in the Cybertruck is also quite resistant to rocks, which should make it popular for northern B.C. drivers who often encounter window-smashing debris on the roads.
The Cybertruck is still two years away from being ready for the market. Holmes thinks its futuristic wedge shape is ugly, but the anticipated $50,000 U.S price for a basic model is more in line with his budget and he likes the 500-kilometre range and the adjustable suspension feature and says it will have the ability to outpull any diesel truck. He likes the four-wheel drive Model Y Tesla, which has two batteries and can easily get to Jasper on one charge, but the $80,000 price tag is a bit scary.
Tesla owner Mark Vejvoda brought his two-year-old Model 3 to the car show and I was among a lucky few invited to take it for a test drive. The first thing you notice is there’s no ignition switch or door entry key. Once I was sitting behind the wheel he punched in his personal code on the large screen mounted on the dash off to my right. He told me to touch the brake and then move the gear lever down into drive, then I touched the throttle and crept slowly and silently out of the parking lot. Silence is the norm in an electric vehicle and with no internal combustion motor there’s no vibration. It was all I could do to hold off on lead-footing it, but that had to wait until I found a straight stretch of road, which was just ahead as we moved through South Fort George along Queensway. I punched it a little, not even halfway down on the pedal, and could feel my neck snapping back into the seat, much like that face-peeled-back G-force feeling you get with the initial launch of a Disneyworld roller coaster. It’s mind-blowing that it could have that much power and stability, with the low-slung, chassis-mounted batteries accounting for most of the car’s weight.
As I approached the corner near the river end of Queensway, Mark told me to take my hands off the wheel and foot off the throttle as he activated the auto-pilot feature. I thought, this Tesla better be the ultimate smart car or I’m going to drift into the oncoming traffic, and it didn’t let us down, smoothly negotiating the corner with ease. Mark suggested I make a lane change, or rather, let the car do it on its own, and he moved the signal arm to get over to the right lane, which we did, after the lane-change sensors checked to make sure it was safe. It would take time to fully trust that hands-off feature.
Teslas are equipped with generators which take advantage of gravity and forward motion to charge the batteries and drivers have a choice of the regenerative braking feature or free-wheeling mode when coming to a stop. The feature saves wear-and-tear on the brake pads, and with no moving engine parts or fluids to fill, there’s very little maintenance needed.
Vejvoda was pleased with the turnout for the city’s first EV event, on a cool rainy day, and he enjoyed talking to people and sharing his own experiences about being an EV owner. Almost invariably, people wanted to know about the car’s range, winter and summer, and where they have to go to plug in during highway trips. He now can hook up to Tesla supercharger and charge a nearly-dead battery to 85 per cent of full charge in 20 minutes.
“To answer those questions just a year or two years ago, I would be giving different answers,” said Vejvoda. “This is a space that’s changing very rapidly and now to charge if you’re going on a long-distance trip you can go east, west or south with pretty much ease. Going north would be harder just because the infrastructure isn’t north yet.
“But let’s be honest, most people do most of their driving in your hometown and your charging is in your garage, so every night you come home and plug in and you don’t think about it. You start it up every morning with a full charge and you’re ready to go. A single charge will last you a week, just driving around Prince George.”
While battery capacity is reduced in cold weather, his Tesla handles slippery roads better than any other vehicle he’s driven.
“I prefer to drive this over my F-150 (pickup truck) because the traction is so good,” said Vejvoda. “If the snow is extremely deep, that’s a different story. I don’t want to scrape my belly and I’m going F-150.”
Hybrids that run on a combination of electric power and gasoline are another alternative. Vejvoda is not a fan of them just because the gas motors require maintenance, like any other internal combustion engine. He says the only maintenance he’s had to do in two years driving a Tesla is changing from summer to winter tires. He’s spent more money changing the oil in his Honda Accord than he has driving his EV for 30,000 kilometres.
Prince George Ford brought two different models of Mach-E Mustangs for people to test drive. Ford also has an F-150 hybrid model that’s now available in the city. P.G. Ford marketing manager Jessica Callaghan said the local dealership will begin taking orders for the Lightning truck in the new year and the world’s first electric trucks should start rolling off the lot by mid-summer. Several other dealerships in town would have participated in the open house event but they were sold out of their EVs.
