November 20, 2009 - 2:20 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
3 of these will soon be on the streets of Vancouver.
Just left this event. The cars look pretty snazzy, and the launch seemed like more than your typical corporate/government type of photo opportunity.
Media Advisory: Province of British Columbia, City of Vancouver, BC Hydro and Mitsubishi Motors
Electric cars delivered to Vancouver
November 18, 2009
The City of Vancouver and BC Hydro will receive three of North America’s first production-ready, highway-capable electric cars, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, at a handover event:
When: Friday, November 20, 2009
11 am
Where: Sunset Community Centre
6810 Main Street
Blair Lekstrom, B.C. Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources will be joined by Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and representatives from BC Hydro for the car delivery. Mr. Tomoki Yanagawa, Vice-President of Sales/Marketing and Corporate Planning of Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Canada Inc. will represent the manufacturer.
Photographers will be able to capture images of the dignitaries, the new vehicles and a new public electric plug-in station at the Sunset Community Centre.
The Province of B.C., City of Vancouver and BC Hydro signed an agreement with Mitsubishi Canada and Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Canada Incorporated earlier this year to allow the cars to be demonstrated in B.C. Two cars will be added to BC Hydro’s fleet and the City of Vancouver will receive one.
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Here are some random thoughts from this pilot program:
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October 8, 2009 - 12:45 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
As described previously on CivicScene, City Council’s green strategies require the construction of an infrastructure upon which to attract global business players to Vancouver. With regards to laying a foundation for the electric car to flourish in Vancouver, I noted:
“Creating an infrastructure for the electric car idea was panned by the development community and seen by many as a Council vote where intention would dwarf action. On the contrary, the policy directive has created waves across North America. One of my closest friends who has just left our fair country to move to Chicago is a sustainability-centred financial analyst who just happens to be working with one of the companies on the continent that is looking to broadly build that electric infrastructure.”
Expect to see these plugged in around Vancouver as of 2011.
Well, the simple vote that launched Vancouver down this path has already begun to attract business, as the Renault-Nissan Alliance has just signed a zero-emission partnership to make Vancouver the first major testing site for the Nissan LEAF, the company’s first all-electric, as of 2011.
Quite frankly, the greenest city aspirations of Mayor Gregor Robertson will only be as good as their ability to become a source of economic activity, making consistency in these kinds of successes extremely important over the coming years.
It will be interesting to see what kind of specific targets and benchmarks the upcoming economic development strategy from the VEDC lays out.
Regardless, this Nissan pilot program is a fantastic start towards greening our local economy.
