Essa Township powered up a pair of new electric vehicle charging stations on Saturday.
Todd Durnford is from Plug’n Drive, a not-for-profit organization that promotes electric vehicles. He’s at the Angus Recreation Centre on Saturday afternoon, about an hour before Essa Township Mayor Sandie Macdonald is scheduled to officially open one of the township’s new electric vehicle chargers.
In the Hyundai Ioniq 5 fully electric car, everything else is slightly different.
The driver display is different, the gear operation is different and the sound is, well, different. But that’s nothing compared to the fact you don’t need to use the brake, unless you want to. It’s called one-pedal driving.
“Have you ever driven a golf cart?” Durnford asks. “It’s the exact same thing. To go forward, step on the accelerator. To stop, take your foot off.”
Sounds simple.
Tapping the accelerator produces the same response as the carts at almost any local golf course. It’s like driving a big golf cart. But unlike a golf cart, an EV can zip. It goes zero to 80 km/h — the posted speed limit — in about 1.5 seconds.
After wrapping up a short road trip, the vehicle pulls into the recreation centre parking lot moments before Macdonald was joined by council colleagues, Essa Township staff, and reps from Earth Day Canada and Aviva, who are behind the new charging stations.
Despite the rain, the cold and a gusting wind, Macdonald was beaming with pride.
“Whoa, nothing can stop us from opening these great electric chargers,” she said.
One of the new charging stations is located in Angus and the other is at the Thornton Arena.
