Juggling Dynamite

Ontario is making some big changes to their new-vehicle Electric Vehicle Incentive Program (EVIP) to help make electric cars more affordable.  Here is a complete list of all qualifying vehicles and incentives along with how to apply.

If you’ve recently bought a plug-in vehicle in Ontario, this may help you as well, as the change is retroactive to Jan 1, 2017.  The province has also committed $100 million over the next five years to build more charging stations.  See Ontario charging up electric vehicle incentives:

While EVs over $150,000 will continue to be excluded from the program, the changes will see a big impact on buyers looking at the low and high end of the market. Previously, EVs and plug-in hybrids were limited to a total rebate of 30-percent of the sticker price. That meant that cars which cost less than $46,600 couldn’t get the full rebate. For example, a $33,998 Nissan Leaf only qualified for $10,199 of the $14,000 in 2016. That limit is now gone, meaning that the Leaf now qualifies for all $14,000, reducing its cost to Ontario buyers considerably.

The electric evolution is happening so fast that most people are far behind in understanding the progress and next steps. Worse still, many are stubbornly denying the change or revealing their ignorance by insisting that electric vehicles are a farce because power grids are not fueled by 100% renewables. Yet.

When we hear this we should think about the wasted time and resources spent in denial of past technological change: from scribes to the printing press, oxen teams to combine harvesters, horse and buggy to ICE, hand computation to calculators, computers and the world wide web. Think airplanes sounded feasible to most when they first heard the idea? We must remember Kodak and Blockbuster and open our minds. When the need is obvious, and the economics so compelling, thinkers commit and suddenly there are no problems only solutions. This Nova special offers a short and entertaining update on the battery revolution.  Well worth watching.  Here is a direct video link.

The key components of this evolution now in rapid progress are: increasing capture of all types of renewable, clean power to feed intercontinental power grids and state of the art batteries that power all manner of electric vehicles and machinery. These are not pie in the sky ideas, this is happening now.  Very exciting time to be alive.

According to the latest issue of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) monthly Energy Infrastructure Update, renewable energy dominated new U.S. electrical generation put into service during 2016. See:  Renewables dominated new US power generation in 2016.

Governments and their sponsors from the fossil fuels sector can continue to waste energy and other resources fighting against this common sense evolution or they can figure out ways to adapt and evolve with it.  In a world of falling employment and wages, cheap, clean power could not come at a better time for the cash strapped masses in all countries.  See: 10 reasons to be optimistic for a low-carbon future. This low-cost financing for households to harness solar power in Africa, can be replicated in larger scale across developed countries as well.  This is what smart looks like:

Pay-as-you-go solar companies, made possible by mobile phones, are the rage in Africa. M-Kopa Solar has leveraged the mobile money phenomena to sell more than 425,000 household solar systems in East Africa. With a $30 deposit and daily 50-cent payments, all by cell phone, customers get a solar panel, a couple of lights, a cell phone charger and a solar powered radio. After the first year of payments, customers own the system outright. Similar off-grid solar companies are now sprouting up across Africa and they’ve attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in financing.