The Quebec government is ready to spend more than $420 million in 2020 just to promote and to sell hundred thousand units of electric and hybrid vehicles annually.
“Transportation electrification represents a way for Quebec to set itself apart by promoting important values such as respect for the environment, collaboration and knowledge as well as the desire to enhance the public’s prosperity and well-being,” the province’s Ministry of Transport says in Propelling Quebec Forward with Electricity, a document that lays out the program.
As they already planned the charge stations for electric automobiles, this investment makes sense. In Quebec there is already located the manufacturer of electric school buses. The plan includes permitting electric vehicles to drive in carpool lanes and modifying the highway safety code to allow low-speed electric vehicles to travel on public roads.
The plan protects from emission and fuel problems. They will never thing about economy on fuel and will have less accidents.
But sales of hybrids and electric vehicles are at best stagnant with the price of gas below $1 a litre in parts of Canada and as low as $1.81 (U.S.) a gallon not far from Mobile, Ala.
Sales of trucks, sport utility vehicles, crossovers, minivans and pickup trucks, represented 61% of the market in Canada in September, up from 58.2% a year earlier. That means sales of more fuel-efficient passenger cars have fallen.
Quebeckers bought around 5,000 - 6,000 hybrid vehicles annually, so they will achieve their goals of sales to 15,000 annually this year and in the next five years to 100,000 annually.
