New curbside electric vehicle charging station makes its debut in downtown London

Downtown London is now home to a new curbside electric vehicle charging station.

MP Peter Fragiskatos unveiled the station along with two new dedicated spaces on Friday morning at their location in front of Crabby Joe’s on Dundas Street near Wellington Street.

“But, by having public charges, it gives people the confidence to know that they’ll have a place to charge if they need to,” said Porter.

While the cost of an electric vehicle is more expensive upfront, Porter said fuel for electric vehicles is about one-fifth the cost of gasoline and the maintenance costs are next to nothing.

“You save about $2,500 in operating costs every year. There’s no air filters, no oil changes.”

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“In my first electric car, the only service I did in four years was new wiper blades, a new cabin air filter and I flushed the brake system,” he said.

The station is one of three downtown and about 40 across the city and is part of the federal government’s plan to create a cleaner transportation sector.

“If you look at the environmental aspect compared to a gas car, most electric cars — assuming it travels 20,000 kilometres a year — usually cuts out about 4,000 kilograms of greenhouse gases every year,” said Porter.

On top of the costs savings and low environmental impact, using the charging stations also gives back to our community, said Porter.

“By having an electric, you use electricity produced in Ontario. Ontario profits from it financially and also from jobs.”

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“With petroleum, it’s usually made somewhere else and the profits and the jobs are outside the province,” he said.

WATCH: Electric vehicles are the easiest cars to maintain

0:38 Electric vehicles are the easiest cars to maintain

The station can charge two vehicles at once and costs $1.50 an hour.

You can find station locations using a number of different apps like PlugShare and ChargeHub.

According to the city, there are currently around 600 plug-in vehicles in London.