Ontario's No EV Policy Now 3 Months Old 2010.05.07

Early in February 2010, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation stopped accepting registrations for electric vehicles in the province. There was no announcement, and no consultation with EV advocates or owners. The first few EV owners turned away at licence bureaus did not even get a reason for the refusal.

When pressed for information, MTO officials offered up some weak reasons. First, apparently large numbers of Ontarians were fraudulently claiming their vehicles were powered by electricity, so as to avoid Drive Clean tests. However, MTO's own data show less than 100 cars and light trucks are registered as electric in Ontario. (I can personally identify about 40 of those that are legitmately electric powered.) MTO has the authority to inspect anything they deem suspicious, and there are stiff penalties for false statements on registration forms, including fines and jail time.

Prior to the secret licensing ban, electric vehicles in Ontario were subject to exactly the same safety inspection, licensing and insurance rules as any other vehicle on the road. The question MTO still has not adequately answered is why this small population of clean-air, environmentally-friendly vehicles has been singled out for this degree of persecution, when street-racers actually have to commit an offence to suffer any penalty, and gross polluters can continue to operate on 'conditional' passes. For a government that claims to support green vehicles, this government has a very strange way of showing it.

Reasoned discussions with MTO officials since the secret ban was discovered have dragged out over many weeks, with little sign of progress toward getting the vehicles re-legalized in Ontario. The only incentive the Ontario government offers for buying or making an electric vehicle, small as it is, ends on June 30, 2010 with the introduction of the HST.