Nextourer

VICTORIA -- The B.C. government is plugging into electric cars. The government is converting 34 hybrid and gas vehicles into plug-in electric vehicles at a cost of $400,000.

Environment Minister Barry Penner said he's excited to drive the first plug-in hybrid vehicle in B.C., which made its public appearance at the legislature yesterday. "I've been looking forward to getting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles into British Columbia for a long time," he said. "We think it's worth it to demonstrate the technology, and to investigate the potential and reduce greenhouse gases."

Plug-in vehicles are not fully electric, but electricity powers some of the drive train.

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The title of the article is a bit misleading since they meant converting to plug-in hybrids.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Your $400K of tax CDN dollars at work, for just *34* vehicles!?

Kaydee

^ don't forget the olympics. Taxes will go through the roof

Nextourer

Sounds right. The conversion is ~ $10,000. $400,000/34 = $11,764. Not sure where the extra $1,764 came from.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

$400k buys 200,000 gallons of gas or, at lets say 25mpg that's 5 MILLION MILES of driving.

What a crazy waste of taxpayer money.

Nextourer

wow... didn't realise people are so against PHEVs here...

I mean, they're the ones that tested out the Prius first (before Ontario and other provinces bothered). B.C. was the first province to offer rebates on hybrids to encourage the purchase of one. We're the ones with the most hybrid taxis (Victoria has the most, followed by Vancouver) and it's all because of the testing. Is it really not worth the money?

Stormwind

That's not bad at all for 34 vehicles if it was America doing it the price tag would be more like 4 million dollars because of all the dumb and corrupt people here.

Assuming they are converting the vehicles that are driven a lot everyday that 400k can be recovered within a few years.

CDNROCKIES

I'm not necessarily agreeing with their decision...I'm a little ambivalent at this point, but it isn't all about gas mileage. The competitive advantage of gas vs. hybrid is certainly debatable. The bottom line is that there is a positive effect on the environment with less emissions. As the Minister mentioned, this is more about reducing greenhouse gases.

Where I live is one of the most beautiful places in the world...and they have introduced hybrid buses to help protect the environment.

Faymester

Yea we've had hybrid bused in Van for a bit too, you see them all over Burnaby (because in Vancouve proper there are of course electric trolly buses)

I must say that I too am completely ambivelant about what they're driving around in; we have other things that are bigger wastes of money.