Gas prices bring spike in demand for electric vehicles on P.E.I.

As the price of fuel reached record-breaking levels this week, Island car dealerships say they're seeing a surge in the number of people looking to buy electric vehicles.

But finding one on P.E.I. may take longer than you think.

On Monday, the minimum price for a litre of regular, self-serve gasoline — with the second unscheduled price review in a week — hit $1.865. The 12.6-cent jump in the price at the pump surpassed the previous inflation-included record set in July 2008, which was $1.81 in 2022 dollars. There was some relief Friday morning, with the gas price dropping 2.3 cents.

Troy Leard at Centennial Nissan in Charlottetown said like many on P.E.I. he's been watching the price of gas climb, and in the last two weeks the number of calls he's received from people inquiring about buying an electric vehicle has shot up.

"We've more or less sold all the electric cars we had in stock except for three," he said. 

He said last July his dealership sold 26 electric cars and interest was strong over the summer, but died down a bit in the fall.

Leard said within the last week, his dealership sold 11 electric cars — eight of those in just two days. 

"A lot of people driving trucks too have been coming in and wanting to trade to a smaller gas car or even some are interested in going from trucks to electric, so that's how big of a shock it is to the system."

Inventory of new EVs low

Leard said he thinks there would be an even bigger spike in electric vehicle sales if dealerships could get access to more new cars — the stock of 2022 models at his dealership is already sold out. 

"We don't have anything, and we can't get them," he said.

He said Nissan has already received more preorders for the 2022 Leaf than it can fill and won't be supplying any more of the vehicles to dealerships.

"We're hoping that, you know, they'll come out early with the 2023 maybe and hopefully get production back to where it needs to be, but as of now we can't get a new electric vehicle," Leard said. 

Leard said the shortage of EVs stems from increased demand and a global shortage of semiconductor chips used for many components in vehicles.

It's a challenge being felt by dealerships across the country, including at Summerside Hyundai. New 2022 models of electric vehicles are sold out there as well. 

"The inventory shortage is everywhere. We're currently taking orders for the 2023 models now," said sales manager Sean MacIsaac.

"The phone calls are non-stop daily." 

MacIsaac said it's hard to say how long the process of ordering a new electric vehicle and driving it off the lot would take at this point. Leard said at Nissan, customers should expect to wait until this fall or early winter if they place their orders now. 

Leard said it's having an impact on his supply of pre-owned EVs too. He used to source more EVs from other dealerships in neighbouring provinces, but those governments have since rolled out incentive programs — similar to P.E.I. — to encourage consumers to buy electric, which has made that harder and harder to do. 

383 rebates issued so far

Cody Vokey, sales manager at All EV in Stratford, which sells pre-owned EVs, said in the last week, the calls to his store and foot traffic on the lot have doubled. 

"Demand has definitely shot up this last couple of days, it's actually quite incredible," Vokey said.

"There's been a lot more interest, there's people who've kind of been on the fence in the last little while who are interested but not really sold on it and then the price of gas increasing has definitely pushed people to our lot."

He said All EV shares a pool of inventory with four other locations across the Maritimes and right now his stock of EVs is good. 

All three dealerships said demand for electric vehicles started to pick up when the province rolled out its incentive program. The province currently offers a $5,000 rebate on new or used electric vehicles, and $2,500 off plug-in hybrids — and provides a free Level 2 charger. The federal government also provides a $5,000 rebate for any new electric vehicle, which can be used on top of the provincial rebate.

"The price of gas being what it is, $80 or so to fill a Corolla or a Civic or something of that size, I mean that's going to charge an electric vehicle several times over," Vokey said. 

"I would say in the last 12 months it's obviously jumped quite a bit and it's only going to keep growing." 

In a statement, the province said 383 electric vehicle rebates have been granted since the program began and 29 of those applications were received since the beginning of 2022. It also said 375 chargers have been given out to Islanders so far. 

Currently, the incentive program only applies to vehicles purchased from a licensed Island dealership.