The City of 91原创 is offering drivers a charge at no charge.
There's only one catch 鈥� they need to be behind the wheel of an electric vehicle.
The municipality announced on Tuesday, that it has installed two electric vehicle charging stations. One is located on the west side of City Hall and the other is at its operations centre.
Introduced at a cost of $28,000 for both stations, the chargers were paid for through a $15,000 grant from the Fraser Basin Council's Community Charging Infrastructure (CCI) program with the $13,000 balance covered by the City.
More chargers will be added when the new Timms Recreation Centre is built, said City Mayor Peter Fassbender.
Electric vehicles are are still a rarity on 91原创 roads, but demand for the chargers will increase as public's confidence in the new technology grows, he predicted.
About three weeks ago, in fact, a man driving an electric car pulled into the City Hall parking lot and asked staff where he could plug it in, said Fassbender.
He just assumed the City would have a charging station, said the mayor.
"Electric cars are no longer an imaginary thing. They're a reality and we'll see more and more of them."
At the same time, more charging stations will be popping up outside municipal facilities, Fassbender believes.
"I think our new (residential) developments are already putting them into their parking areas. I think we're going to see a lot more of that."
Vanadis Oviedo, from the Fraser Basin Council, agreed. She called it a chicken-egg paradox, saying there will be no growth in infrastructure without the purchase of electric cars and no increase in the number of electric cars on the road, without the infrastructure to support them.
"It's an industry very much in its infancy," said Karel Jonker, owner of Jonker Nissan, who supplied a Nissan Leaf for the demonstration.
The Leaf is the first consumer-sized fully electric vehicle, he said, adding other carmakers are currently at work on their own versions.
As electric vehicle prices come down, Jonker expects the cars will grow in popularity, much as hybrids took time to catch on.
It costs about $200 worth of electricity to run a Leaf for a year, compared to $2,000 in gasoline for a regular car of similar size, he said.
At a rate of nine cents per kilowatt hour, it costs about $2 to fully charge a car with an empty battery, a process that can take three to four hours at one of the stations, according to the chargers' manufacturer.
However, the City is offering the electricity for free to drivers for the first year, said Fassbender, calling it "a small price to pay."
Kyle Simpson, superintendent of engineering operations for the City, expects very few vehicles will stop at the stations to complete a full $2 charge, saying they will more likely be used for top-ups.
"I hope they get a lot of use. This is something the City needs to embrace," he said.
The chargers will be operational daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. at City Hall, at 20399 Douglas Cres. and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the operations centre, 5713 198 St.
