DRIVE
Read about cars
of the future and more
auto trends at
AMAinsider.com
Charge It
For EV owners,
the influx of
charging stations
across Alberta is
a welcome sight
Electric Avenues
Electric cars successfully navigate Alberta roads
NASH PHOTOS/GETTY
BY ALI BRYAN
ELECTRIC VEHICLES (EVS) have had a bumpy
ride. Like the latest over-promoted film flop,
they’ve seldom lived up to their hype. Long
charge times, inadequate infrastructure and
highway impracticality have kept the “car of
the future” out of present-day garages.
But things are changing, and they’re
changing quickly. In The New York Times
bestseller The Second Machine Age, authors
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee note
that society is at an “inflection point,” and
cite digital technologies that had once been
“laughably bad” suddenly got “very good.”
Tesla driver Michael Subasic of Calgary
couldn’t agree more. “What you’re going to
see soon,” he muses from behind the dash
of his Tesla Model S85D, “is every major car
manufacturer will have an electric offering and more of their line will be electric
than fossil-fuel powered.” Ford, for instance,
recently announced a $4.5-billion investment in its EV division. Over the next five
years, the company plans to launch 13 new
electric models, including a revamped,
100-percent electric version of the everpopular Ford Focus.
Rapid advances in digital technology—
coupled with major investments in EV infrastructure like charging stations—are making
the vehicles more accessible and userfriendly. Albertans can currently find nearly
50 EV charging