New electric vehicle charging stations are now in place in Amherstburg.
EV chargers have been installed in several areas throughout the town, with two charging ports at Austin Toddy Jones Park, four charging ports at the Libro Centre and two charging ports in the municipal parking lot on Ramsay Street.
The charging stations were approved by Amherstburg council in May 2022 due to increased demand for electric vehicles.
Irek Kusmierczyk, Windsor-Tecumseh Liberal MP, took part in a rbbon-cutting Tuesday for the new charging stations and says it's important to have the infrastructure as we transition to electric vehicles.
"We want to make sure the charging stations are there, the infrastructure is there, so that folks when they do have electric vehicles, when they're driving around, they can either charge those at home or charge those at public charging stations as well," he says.
Kusmierczyk says the federal government has a target to have 50,000 public charging stations by 2026.
"There's around 16,000 charging stations already installed across Canada, we're seeing an acceleration of that. We're also seeing the private sector stepping up, so for example, General Motors recently made an announcement that they're going to be installing 40,000 charging stations across all of their dealerships across North America," he says.
Kusmierczyk believes we're at a tipping point right now when it comes to electric vehicles.
"Over the next couple of years, in a very short term, you're going to start to see many more electric vehicles on dealerships. You're going to see a lot more electric vehicles in driveways and as a result, you're going to see the infrastructure catching up as well in a big way," he adds.
In the last election, the federal Liberals promised to build 50,000 more chargers by the end of 2026.
With files from Rob Hindi