Canada
Tesla Urges Owners to Support VicEVA Advocacy at Measurement Canada

Tesla Urges Owners to Support VicEVA Advocacy at Measurement Canada

Last week, Tesla Canada became the first EV manufacturer to join VicEVA’s drive to have Measurement Canada update its regulations to allow EV Charge providers to base the cost of charging on kWh rather than the time a vehicle is charging.

All Tesla owners in Canada have, by now, received the following email:

Hello,

Have you ever noticed or wondered why EV drivers are billed by the minute for charging sessions, rather than by the amount of electricity received?

Current Federal standards, established by Measurement Canada require that anyone providing EV charging services must charge customers on a time-only basis. The only other option available is to use a pre-approved and inspected utility-grade electricity meter, but that would increase charging infrastructure costs, reduce charging availability, and increase charging infrastructure costs, reduce charging availability, and increase charging costs for consumers. These Federal standards were designed well before EVs became popular and public EV charging became common, and the unintended effect of these rules is less price transparency for consumers and unfair billing for EV charging.

With time-based billing, consumers run the risk of paying more to charge their EV one day compared to the next. Battery state of charge and temperature are just two of the factors that can affect charging speeds and thus cost — regardless of the amount of electricity delivered. For example, as an EV driver, you pay certain amount to charge your vehicle for 30 minutes on a fast (Level-3) chargers. If that 30-minute charging session is in the winter, you’ll be paying the same amount, but you’ll likely get less electricity for your money, since cold temperatures affect charging speeds. This is just one of the many scenarios in which the $/minute billing hurts you as a customer.

While Tesla’s tier billing system takes charging speed into account and diminishes the impact on the consumer, this isn’t the case for most public charging networks. To enable more transparent and fair billing for all consumers, all the time, Measurement Canada should allow network-connected EV charging connectors to count energy use, while they establish rules for accuracy.

Join us in urging Measurement Canada to temporarily pause the current rules while they work toward developing new long term EV charging metering standards. Help accelerate Canada’s transition to sustainable energy by clicking below to learn more and have your voice heard.

We appreciate your support

Best Regards,
Tesla Policy Team

We look forward to Canada’s other Electric Vehicle brands to join us in establishing fair and equitable charging to all EV drivers.