Poll: Northern readers less likely to want their next car to be electric

Forty per cent of Village Media readers participating in an online poll this week said they would like their next car to be a low-emission vehicle, like an EV or hybrid.

Excluding readers who said they didn't own their car or weren't planning to buy another after their current one, 43 per cent said they'd like their next car to be electric. 

The numbers imply that there is a large pent-up demand for EVs in Ontario. At the moment, only about two per cent of cars owned in the province are plugins or hybrids.

If 40 per cent of Ontario drivers in fact bought EVs - assuming they were available to be bought - there would be about 2.4 million being driven in the province. For the moment, however, the supply of EVs is well short of the supply of willing buyers. 

There are regional differences in the data. Looking at communities where there were enough responses to draw conclusions, northern cities had less interest, in general, than those in south-central Ontario.

Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, North Bay and Sudbury all had less than 40 per cent of respondents saying they wanted an EV, while communities to the south mostly had more interest. Collingwood was at 57 per cent, and Guelph at 51 per cent. 

The poll reflects responses from about 7,100 Village Media readers who chose to participate, and reflects where local sites are based in the province. After Toronto, the most responses were received from Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Sudbury. 

The poll had similar results to a recent one in the United States. 

At the moment, higher-income neighbourhoods in the Greater Toronto Area have the highest ownership rates for EVs: