The Canadian province of Quebec has announced plans to offer government rebates of up to $8000 (Canadian) on high-capacity electric vehicles in a bid to place 300,000 plug-in electric vehicles on Quebec’s roads by 2020. With up to $50 million in funding already set aside for the program, the province hopes that – by doing so – they’ll be able to cut overall carbon emissions to the tune of 900,000 tons annually.
Currently, Quebec’s petroleum use breakdown looks like this …
… and, since more than 90% of Quebec’s electricity comes from hydro power, this isn’t a case of simply diverting fossil fuel use from gasoline being burned in cars to Albertan tar sand oil being burned at the power station, either. As such, a large-scale switch to EVs and plug-in vehicles would (arguably) have a bigger positive impact in Quebec than it would in areas that rely on coal.