Canadian EV fast chargers sit idle more than 90% of the time

According to the latest data for Canadian fast chargers, the network is being underused by Canadian EV owners.

Paren, a charging infrastructure analytics firm, completed its latest 2026 snapshot and found that a fast-charging port was in use in Canada only 9.5% of the time. However, as expected with the EV market in Canada, the regional discrepancy was significant.

British Columbia had the highest province-wide use rate, with chargers occupied 12.4% of the time. This higher utilization was driven by chargers in Vancouver, which saw a 22.5% utilization rate, the highest in the country. Toronto was second in terms of city-specific utilization rate with 17.3%.

You compare that to Saskatchewan, which as a province only had a 3.2% utilization rate, putting it with the lowest provincial utilization rate.  

Paren’s data comes from a network of over 10,000 charging ports across the country at over 2,800 locations.

So, you may be asking why this matters, and the answer is that for charging companies to maintain a long-term profitable stance, chargers need to be used between 15% and 20% of the time. Only Toronto and Vancouver meet this threshold, but industry experts are not concerned about the current low charging utilization in the country.

As Canada has been building out its charging infrastructure, areas with low EV adoption have still received subsidized charging stations to encourage the transition.

The goal is to balance between idle chargers and congestion and continue to expand the network where it is needed now, and where it will be needed in the future to support road trips and local adaptation.