Plugged In

Misinformation. Add that to hunger, thirst and war as existential threats to our survival. In this age of dubious news sources, weaponized artificial intelligence and bad state actors, society has never been so polarized. 

That’s certainly true of the electric vehicle segment, where bogus studies from both sides of the issue muddy the waters and further confuse consumers. Our guest Dan Caesar, and the team he leads at Fully Charged and Everything Electric, has made it a career to provide honest reporting and balanced viewpoints to the pressing issue of sustainable living, driving and, well, existing. 

We start off with a chat about the past, present and future of EVs then transition to discussing the upcoming Everything Electric Show, taking place in Vancouver in early September. And at the end of the episode, which marks the end of Season 8 of Plugged In, Andrew provides a code to get you 20 per cent off tickets.

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Just as electric vehicles are seen as a sustainable solution to the world’s transportation needs, solar energy is considered essential to achieving our planet’s clean energy needs. 

Which makes the combination of the two seem only natural. That’s certainly what GoSun founder and CEO Patrick Sherwin thought, and the result is a clever, roof-mounted and expandable solar power panel that plugs directly into the vehicle that is carrying it. 

It’s an obvious solution for off-grid camping, van lifers and work sites, but it’s also an elegant solution of using the sun’s rays to charge up your car’s battery pack.

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User-case is a term often associated with electric vehicles, as while some people’s needs and requirements of a vehicle can be perfectly suited to an EV, others will find major shortfalls in going all-electric. 

The same is true for heavy trucks and buses, and one of the clear winning user cases for an EV bus is the variety that picks up and drops off school children. To prove that point, Ontario-based Pollution Probe teamed with several partners on the Calgary Electric School Bus Pilot Program. 

The eight-month, real-world test saw an all-electric Blue Bird bus do daily routine routes for a number of months in Calgary. Most importantly, many of those school days were in the depths of a Prairie winter, so the findings are relevant for many school districts across Canada. Our guest on today’s Plugged In podcast is Cedric Smith, Pollution Probe’s director of transportation and one of the key players in the pilot program.

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It all started in the depths of Covid, when Sloane Paul wanted to make her classic Bronco more ‘driver-friendly,’ and not so loud. But when she searched for a company that could convert her beautiful truck into an electric vehicle near her Toronto home, she came up empty handed. 

The entrepreneur in her sensed an opportunity, and after convincing her clever brother Tom Chep to join forces with her and figure out how to turn the Bronco into an EV, the duo created a company to do just that for others who want the benefits of an EV powertrain — smooth, quiet, easy to drive — combined with the sentimentality of a classic vehicle.

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Ken Bokor is the host of the EV Revolution Show on YouTube, and for years has done some of the most in-depth sales tracking of electric vehicles in Canada. He’s also a loud and proud Tesla, owner and while he does see some logic to the recent upheavals to the automaker’s workforce and operating environment, he can’t help but admit he is a little concerned about the direction Elon Musk is taking the company. 

Ken remains bullish about EV adoption in Canada, and to prove the point lists off a number of coming-soon EVs as proof that global automakers are far from folding the tent when it comes to all-electrics.

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We’re kicking off Season 8 of the Plugged In podcast with guest Nathan Yang, the Vice-President and Chief Product Officer for Flo, a Quebec-based company that has installed over 100,000 public, private and residential EV chargers since its founding in 2009.

We begin with a birds-eye view of Canada’s public charging network — the successes, failures and possible solutions — then dive into on how Flo is playing a part, along with a number of other charging solution companies, in expanding and improving the public charging infrastructure across North America.

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Increasingly we’re seeing fully electric cargo vans and trucks zipping around our neighbourhoods as an increasing number of businesses are discovering the benefits of going electric.

On this episode of the Plugged In podcast, host Andrew McCredie is joined by Charlotte Argue Senior Manager, Sustainable Mobility at Canada-based Geotab, the world’s largest telematics company.

Charlotte has been active in the electric vehicle space since way back in 2009, and her current job is to focus on enabling fleets in reducing carbon emissions with data-driven solutions, and sharing aggregated insights to inform large-scale vehicle electrification strategies. She is a subject matter expert in fleet electrification and a champion for connected vehicle technology solutions in the EV industry.  

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On today’s episode of the Plugged In podcast we welcome back long-time friend of the show Ken Bokor, one of the country’s pre-eminent EV experts. Not only does the Toronto-based host of the EV Revolution Show on YouTube know the technical aspects of electric vehicles, but his detailed research into sales data also provides an up-to-date snapshot of where things stand in terms of EV adoption in Canada.

We’ll hear his thoughts on the headwinds that electric vehicles sales and production are currently experiencing, then we’ll talk about which all-new EVs he’s most excited about and why. If you’re in the market for an electric vehicle, this is a show you should listen to. And, of course, subscribe to. 

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Road tripping and garage orphans represent two of the more pressing EV charging infrastructure issues that are holding back some from purchasing an electric vehicle.

On this week’s episode of Plugged In, we talk with a B.C.-based entrepreneur Kevin Brett who has just launched a new start-up company that provides a solution to that problem.

Blossom EV is an innovative web platform that uses a shared economy business model to help EV drivers locate, access and reserve charging sessions at Level 2 chargers at the homes of other EV owners. 

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Ever ride in an all-electric taxi cab? Didn’t think so. While it’s true more and more Uber drivers are understanding the benefits of picking people up in an EV, traditional taxi fleets across the country have yet to see the electric light.

On this week’s episode of Plugged In we try and answer that question with two guests. Matt Grace is a Calgary based sustainability consultant and researcher who is currently working on a study with Green Calgary and funded by Alberta Ecotrust to look into why there is just one EV taxi in all of Alberta. And Darryl Kolewaski is the guy who owns that EV cab.

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