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Want an EV in Toronto? Star investigation finds shockingly long waits compared to anywhere else in Canada

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Around the world, from China to California, the number of people buying electric cars is doubling every year.

Car manufacturers are ramping up production and announcing new zero-emission models at a rapid pace.

But if a Torontonian wants to join the electric-driving revolution, they’ll have to wait.

And wait and wait.

Wait-lists for a new zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) in Toronto are almost 11 months long on average, according to a Star survey of dealerships from every major brand and company in the city.

That’s far longer than prospective ZEV buyers have to wait elsewhere. In Quebec, no dealership wait-list was longer than six months, according to a nationwide survey done for Transport Canada last year.

While the international chip shortage has snarled supply chains for all vehicles, exploding demand for ZEVs has made them even harder to get your hands on. Couple this with laws in British Columbia and Quebec that require car companies to sell a certain proportion of electric vehicles and the resulting situation is that when ZEVs roll off the line, they’re sent to those provinces first.

All this leaves Toronto drivers in the lurch. They will have to keep their gas guzzlers on the road for months — or years — longer while waiting for their new ZEV to arrive.



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“Toronto is in really bad shape,” said Daniel Breton, president and CEO of Electric Mobility Canada. “There’s a long wait-list with pretty much every manufacturer.”

The Star called 31 dealerships in Toronto and, posing as a prospective customer, asked what electric and hybrid models were available and how long they would take to arrive.

The results were far worse than those reported to Transport Canada in 2021.

Less than a quarter of the dealerships had a single ZEV in the showroom and even fewer would let you test drive one, leaving buyers to put down a deposit of $500 to $1,000 to buy a car sight unseen.

Wait-lists for different vehicles varied widely — from one to 24 months — and drivers interested in a plug-in hybrid had to wait longer on average than those who wanted a full electric. (The Star did not include hybrid electric vehicles, or HEVs, in its survey because they do not have a full-electric mode and always produce emissions while driving.)

The Jeep Wrangler plug-in hybrid would arrive in three months, dealers told the Star. So would the all-electric Mini Cooper three-door.

Tesla’s Model 3 and Model S could arrive in Toronto in as little as one month, according to the company’s website, but the Star was unable to confirm this with a dealer or company representative. (Tesla requires online orders.)

On the other end of the spectrum, the Volkswagen ID.4, Toyota bZ4X, Subaru Solterra, Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kona and the Ford F-150 Lightning all have 24-month wait-lists, dealers said.

But those were the outliers. Most battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles would be delivered eight months after a customer put down a deposit, the survey found.

For years, car manufacturers resisted investing in electric drive technology, claiming EVs would never catch on, said Breton. Now, with demand for electric cars through the roof, they’ve been caught with their pants down.

“I think that the next two years are going to be really complicated for some of them. I’m not even sure that they will all survive.”

Breton said auto manufacturers would be wise to learn from the mistakes of the photography industry as it pivoted to digital at the turn of the millennium.

“To me, it’s a Kodak moment,” he said. “Kodak said: ‘We’re making a lot of money selling film and these new digital cameras are going to hurt our business model.’ ”

Instead of investing in new technology, Kodak continued chasing a film market that was rapidly disappearing and went bankrupt.

“It’s a lot of investment up front and it’s a lot less profit up front. But in the end, there’s not going to be any profit at all if they don’t make electric cars because everybody’s going there. So they’ll end up being stuck with vehicles that nobody will want to buy.”

The Star followed up with each car manufacturer with the results of its survey and asked them to verify the wait times and explain why they’re so long.

Of the companies that responded, all said supply chain issues had affected their EV manufacturing but that they expected to be able to increase production in the coming months, which would go some way to addressing customer wait times. While a few suggested particular models might be available slightly faster than dealerships had said, none contested the Star’s results.

***

Zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) include both battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), which can operate at slower speeds and for shorter distances on an electric motor alone.

Sales of both types of ZEVs have been hot. For the first half of 2022, BEV sales increased by 44 per cent over the last year, according to Statistics Canada, while sales of PHEVs have gone up 16 per cent.

But Canada’s uptake is falling behind the rest of the world. Globally, ZEV sales more than doubled last year.

No longer a niche product for ecoconscious drivers, ZEVs have gained widespread appeal as gas prices have risen. A recent study by Clean Energy Canada found BEVs to cost $10,000 less to buy and operate over an eight-year period, compared to a similar gas-powered model. The savings increased to $17,000 if gas prices rise to $2/L.

Up to now, Tesla has been dominant. Data collected by the Environment and Climate Change Canada and Transport Canada indicates that more Teslas were sold nationwide last year than all other BEVs combined. Even though they no longer qualify for a government rebate, the cars remain popular, in no small part because of Tesla’s far faster delivery timelines.

During the Star’s dealership survey, some dealers expressed doubt about estimated wait times at other manufacturers, saying supply is so short, they’re too good to be true.

One dealer said other dealerships could be painting an overly optimistic picture to get customers to put down a deposit and stop looking for other cars. No electric vehicle can be delivered in less than 12 to 14 months, he said, adding that timeline applied “industry-wide.”

But Cara Clairman, president and CEO of Plug’n Drive, a non-profit that promotes electric vehicles and arranges test drives, said dealers were more likely to offer pessimistic estimates so customers don’t get angry when their car doesn’t arrive on time.

“They’re giving you the worst-case scenario,” she said.

“The good news is that a lot of people put their name on a lot of lists,” and when they get one car, they drop off the lists for others, she said. “The list tends to move much faster.”

Citing examples of people who were told they’d wait a year and got their car in less than half that time, Clairman said four months is “probably quite realistic.”

“But I don’t want to give people false hope, because sometimes a year might really be a year,” she said.

Uncertainty over delivery is pushing some buyers to the young but burgeoning used EV market, where you can still buy a car and drive it right off the lot.

Electric Vehicle Network, a pre-owned EV dealership in Etobicoke, recently had eight EVs advertised on its website, but president Darryl Croft said that’s only a fraction of the 20-25 used EVs they have at any given time.

By drawing from EV owners across North America, the dealership can find any model a customer is looking for and typically gets the car shipped to Toronto in anywhere from three days to three weeks.

“We deal in reality, in cars that you can buy today,” said Croft. “People are being led down the garden path, putting down a deposit on a car that hasn’t been made yet and will not be available at the price they think.”

Customers who turn to used EVs are often upset and disillusioned after having been told the new EV they put a deposit down for is no longer available and a new model will cost more, he said.

“Used is a great option for EVs. People need to wrap their heads around how different they are from internal combustion engines,” said Croft. “EVs are much more reliable and durable, with fewer moving parts and good warranties on their batteries.”

***

Wait times are getting longer, not shorter.

The 11-month average wait time the Star found in Toronto is far longer than Ontario dealerships reported in the Transport Canada survey last year, when three-quarters of them had wait times of less than six months.

Several dealers tried to dissuade a Star reporter from purchasing an EV, saying the gas savings aren’t as big as advertised and efficient gas vehicles are very cheap to fill up.

This is a common — and understandable — sales tactic at the dealerships, Clairman said.

“If they don’t have an EV, they’re going to encourage you to buy something they have,” she said. “And I don’t think we should kind of vilify them for that. I mean, you know, that’s how the guy makes his living.

“What we need to do is make sure they have (EVs) on the lot so they can sell them.”

This is why electric car advocates say an EV sales mandate is essential. In B.C. and Quebec, car manufacturers are required to sell a certain proportion of electric vehicles — and most of the available supply of EVs end up at dealerships in those provinces.

“Manufacturers send first and foremost vehicles to where the regulation is the most stringent,” said Electric Mobility Canada’s Breton. “In Ontario, we get the leftovers.



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“As time goes by, more and more jurisdictions are adopting EV sales regulations. If we don’t have regulations, I mean, the waiting list is not going to get any shorter.”

In B.C., 25 per cent of all vehicle sales must be ZEVs by 2026, and 90 per cent by 2030. In Quebec, the mandate sets a level of 26 per cent ZEVs by 2026 and 100 per cent by 2035.

Rather than portraying it as a way to force manufacturers to make EVs, Breton said a sales mandate is a defensive measure governments need to take to ensure even a minimum number of EVs are available locally.

Research carried out by Electric Mobility Canada shows that sales mandates have a far greater effect on EV purchases than cash rebates for buyers.

Both P.E.I. and New Brunswick provide $5,000 to EV purchasers. But uptake of electric vehicles in those provinces is even lower than Ontario, where there is no provincial government cash on offer. (The federal government offers a $5,000 rebate for qualifying EVs nationwide.)

By contrast, those provinces with sales mandates lead the pack in EV adoption because they ensure cars are actually available to buy.

As recently as last fall, there were more ZEVs sold in Montreal than in all of Ontario.

In the first half of 2022, only five per cent of cars sold in Ontario were ZEVs, below the Canada-wide average of seven per cent. In Quebec, the rate of EV adoption is more than twice as high (11 per cent), and in B.C. it’s triple (15 per cent.)

Meanwhile in Toronto, fewer ZEVs are sold than in Montreal or Vancouver, even though far more cars are sold here. Only eight per cent of new vehicles sold in Toronto are ZEVs. That’s compared to 15 and 20 per cent in Montreal and Vancouver, respectively.

“The evidence really points to the fact that there were more cars available in Vancouver to purchase because automakers were required to send supply there,” said Rachel Doran, director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada, a Vancouver-based think tank.

“It is true that auto manufacturers have a larger profit margin on traditional (gas-powered) vehicles,” she said. “They’re making more money off of these cars currently. And in Ontario, they have no obligation to be trying to prioritize their EVs.”

Doran lamented the fact that Ontario was focusing so much on establishing an EV manufacturing industry without considering the other half of the equation: ensuring sales also happen here.

In Ontario, EV rebates were eliminated by Premier Doug Ford in 2018, and sales dropped by 74 per cent. ZEV sales only recovered to their previous levels this year.

“Without a ZEV mandate in Ontario, the risk is that those cars roll off the production lines in Ontario and get sent to other locations,” Doran said.

This actually occurred in 2011, when the provincial and federal governments spent $140 million in public funds to subsidize the production of Toyota RAV4 EVs in Ontario, only to see them shipped across the border for U.S. customers.

The federal government has promised a nationwide EV sales mandate by the end of the year, which could go some way to ensuring more ZEVs make it to Canada instead of being shipped to the U.S. and European Union.

But due to complex jurisdictional issues, it could be difficult to even out the lopsided sales among provinces.

“We are at the tipping point for zero-emission vehicles,” said federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault in a statement. “Their time has come. Our job as government is to help consumers, manufacturers, workers and supply chains make this move as seamlessly as possible.

“Our mandated sales targets for new zero-emission vehicles will complement other government actions and give predictability to both investors and consumers.”

For the time being, the closest many Torontonians will get to a new electric car is checking one out on the internet, where frequent disclaimers just add salt to the wound: “Only available in Quebec and British Columbia.”

Marco Chown Oved is a Toronto-based reporter covering climate change for the Star. Reach him via email: [email protected]

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