On the Electrification of Canada's Vehicular Fleets: National-scale analysis shows that mindsets matter

The MCmaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics and its partners, including the University of Windsor, have been carrying out research examining the unfolding transition toward electrified transport in Canada. A premise underlying the work is that the tremendous progress on the technological side of electrification (e.g., reduced battery costs) is such that many of the remaining primary barriers to increased electrification are not really technological in nature. The main focus of the work, then, has been to gain a better understanding of factors in varying adoption contexts that may influence the rate at which electrification takes place. Understanding the potential consumer of EVs has been a central focus, but two additional survey efforts, discussed more fully later in this article, have examined adoption perspectives in governmental and corporate fleets. With regard to public transit fleets and the prospects for electric buses (e -buses) in Canada in particular, a cross -national tour was undertaken to conduct in -person, semistructured interviews with leading municipalities/ transit operators. Insights from this effort are also covered in a following section.