The adoption of electric vehicles in B.C. is being affected by the limited availability of EV chargers, experts say, which in turn may be affected by high costs for land, equipment and building modernization.
Real estate can constitute anywhere from five to 30 per cent of the total installation cost of a public charging station, according to Chandan Bhardwaj, senior transportation analyst with the Pembina Institute think tank. The high end is more likely in Greater Vancouver versus more remote locales.
“The bulk of the chargers, as of today, are either in gas stations who already own that real estate, or property managers who own parking lots,” Bhardwaj said. “There has been little need for people to buy new land, but as demand increases, people will need to.”
Public charging stations can follow the “gas station” model or the “parking lot” model, he said.
By gas stations, Bhardwaj means regular gas stations like those owned by Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX), Shell plc (LON:SHEL) and Petro-Canada, which may install several chargers on existing premises. Gas stations are more suitable for faster Level 3 chargers, he said, owing to prevailing driving patterns and preferences.
By parking lots, he means retail plazas, shopping malls, universities and anywhere else where there are publicly accessible parking spots. This is the most common model in North America and B.C., Bhardwaj said.
“One thing that will prevent people from buying is if they live in older multi-family residential settings where they don't have charging infrastructure and there are no plans to put it in,” said Chris Koch, head of growth and partnerships at Hypercharge Networks Corp.
“Those people will be considering, where is the publicly available charging close to me that I can reliably get a charge on a regular basis? So whether that’s at the grocery store or at your workplace or at the gym that you go to, those are alternatives that people will look to when they consider making the switch to electric.”
North Vancouver-based Hypercharge works with stratas, new-build developers, property managers and landlords. Its network has 400 sites across nine provinces and 13 U.S. states, consisting of about 2,500 chargers with an equivalent number pending.
Koch estimated that nearly 10 per cent of vehicles on B.C. roads are EVs.
“Even with that small percentage of the vehicles being electric, there’s not enough charging available,” he said.
In B.C., the biggest builders of EV charging infrastructure are BC Hydro, Québec City-based Flo (formally Services FLO Inc.) and FortisBC. Other providers include Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq:TSLA), Swtch Energy Inc., ChargePoint Inc. (NYSE:CHPT) and HoneyBadger Charging Inc.
Pembina’s Bhardwaj said the two utilities are less concerned with real estate economics compared to the private players, since their focus is on the public good and public access.
Barriers to private investment include power availability, regulatory delays, equipment costs, utilization rates, and a lack of standardization of payment method and equipment type, he said.
The key question for investors, Hypercharge’s Koch said, is whether they can “make money selling electrons."
"The considerations will be, how busy is that parking lot, and do they think there’s a lot of electric vehicles coming there?”
This article was updated on March 26, 2025 for greater clarity following a request from Hypercharge Networks Corp.
