ecoTECHNOLOGY for Vehicles: What Canada’s Doing

I’m sure we’ve all heard some buzz around Hybrid, Plug-In Hybrid Electric and Battery Electric Vehicles. What I was unaware of though was Transport Canada’s efforts to make more environmentally friendly vehicles and in an accessible way to Canadians. Along with the U.S our government has,

“committed to developing increasingly stringent greenhouse gas emissions regulations for passenger cars and trucks”

Over the next few years, Transport Canada is going to be working to further develop vehicle efficiency and how beneficial it can be to the entire country through electric vehicles.

Check out Transport Canada’s eTV Vehicle Program.
Transport Canada’s ecoTECHNOLOGY for Vehicles Program (eTV) conducts in-depth safety, environmental and performance testing on a range of new and emerging advanced vehicle technologies for passenger cars and heavy-duty trucks.

eTV puts out a newsletter called Green Wheels to keep Canadians up to date with the partnerships being shaped to develop increasingly environmentally friendly vehicle technologies for Canada.

eTV has also compiled a series of short videos  clean vehicle technology programming.

Let’s admit, riding our bicycles in some Canadian winter conditions is an incredibly difficult lifestyle to adapt to. Therefore our dependency on vehicle transportation is almost impossible to avoid. Driving our cars and trucks all winter though does not have to be detrimental to the environment, not forever anyways.

Most cars today use gasoline or diesel and produce about 12 per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions each year. These emissions also produce pollutants that can harm your health and the environment. So, we need to look for ways to make cars use less fuel and produce less pollution. Electric cars—all vehicles, including cars, trucks, motorcycles and scooter—are a step in the right direction. Unlike gasoline or diesel cars, they produce no emissions or pollutants when operating on electricity. And if people use electricity from clean sources like hydro or wind turbines to charge their car’s batteries, these cars can be even cleaner! On average electricity in Canada produces about 200 grams of CO₂ per kilowatt-hour. This means that an electric car produces about 60 to 80 per cent less CO₂ than one that runs on gasoline or diesel.

While Hybrid cars have been around since the 1990’s cost has often been a barrier in clean vehicles being accessible to Canadian’s. As Canada comes out with many more Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Battery Electric Vehicles in the next few years we can hope that environmentally friendly vehicle options will be affordable options to buy. Without a doubt with gas costs taken into account PEV’s and BEV’s will save money in the long run as fuel costs will be significantly less or non existent. Learn more about why electric vehicles are a clean direction for transportation to take.