Last year Petro-Canada announced plans to build an “electric highway”, connecting the east and west coasts of Canada with a high-speed charging network. They followed through on those plans quickly, as the opening of the electric vehicle (EV) charging station in Victoria, BC on December 17th marked the official completion of a coast-to-coast connection.
Since the first EV charging stations started popping up across Canada, drivers have been able to use them for free. According to Petro-Canada’s website, they were going to remain free “until the new year”, at which point a time based pricing structure would be implemented.
Tesla in Canada has just learned through a source familiar with the matter that the new pricing structure will be in place starting “next week”. The source also revealed charging will cost $0.27 per minute in BC, with varying rates from province to province. Check out the table below for a full list of rates. For a 30 minute charge, which Petro-Canada claims on their website is the typical amount of time needed to get a charge using either the CCS or CHAdeMO connections, it will cost you $8.10 in BC (Tesla owners can only charge using the Tesla CHAdeMO adapter).
| Province | Cost per minute | Cost per 30 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| British Columbia | $0.27 | $8.10 |
| Alberta | $0.33 | $9.90 |
| Manitoba | $0.33 | $9.90 |
| Saskatchewan | $0.33 | $9.90 |
| Ontario | $0.33 | $9.90 |
| Quebec | $0.20 | $6.00 |
| New Brunswick | $0.25 | $7.50 |
| Nova Scotia | $0.25 | $7.50 |
| Newfoundland | N/A | N/A |
| Prince Edward Island | N/A | N/A |
| Northwest Territories | N/A | N/A |
| Yukon | N/A | N/A |
| Nunavut | N/A | N/A |
This pricing structure sits near the low end of Tesla’s pricing structure, which currently costs users $0.44 per minute above 60 kW, and $0.22 per minute at or below 60 kW, according to Tesla’s website. The CCS connection allows charging at up to 350kW “at most locations” of Petro-Canada’s network, while the CHAdeMO connection can get up to 100kW.
Overall this is a competitive and reasonable rate for Petro-Canada to be charging EV drivers. While it’s unfortunate they can’t stay free forever, paying about $8 for a fill-up is still much better than paying current gas prices which can easily set you back $100+ for a full tank of fossil fuel.
Will you be using the Petro-Canada EV chargers to juice up your Tesla?
UPDATE: The charge of $0.27 per minute appears to be for BC only, and different provinces may have different rates.
Featured image via Plugshare
