INTEL
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
David Oldridge of Envirotech stands beside his company’s 2019 Urban Electric Class 3 Truck. This truck was on display at the B.C. legislature last fall as Premier John Horgan announced CleanBC. The legislation, expected this spring, will mandate 10% of all new light-duty car and truck sales in B.C. must be zero emission by 2025, rising to 30% in 2030 and 100% by 2040.
MONEY
BY STEVE BOKOR AND IAN DAVID CLARK
Move Over, Tesla. There’s a New Truck in Town Big automakers spent decades trying to kill the electric vehicle. Now they’re seriously in the race, but it’s a winding road with many new players — including a promising Island one.
E
lectric vehicles have been around for a long time, but lacklustre investment interest has kept the industry confined to incubator status … until now. A perfect storm of consumer demand, government sponsorship and environmental stewardship, along with urbanization of the labour pool, has laid the foundation for a paradigm shift toward the electric vehicle (EV). Adding to the electric impulse is the combined impact of baby boomers exiting the workforce, debt-strapped millennials eschewing the traditional commute, and consumers making a conscious effort to reduce their carbon footprint. There’s no question that entrepreneurs are now rushing in to capitalize, and things are coming together at the right time, but how did it reach the consciousness of Wall Street and Bay Street?
ELECTRIC SURGE Tesla Motors has brought a lot of attention to the EV market. Fifteen years ago, two 90 DOUGLAS
engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, formed Tesla Motors to build and sell electric vehicles. As a fledgling company, they desperately needed capital to get the business off the ground. Their early investors included one of Silicon Valley’s golden boys: Elon Musk, an entrepreneur with a seemingly Midas touch. Musk didn’t think of Tesla as an auto manufacturer; instead, he envisioned it as a transformative technology company. His rationale for backing Tesla was climatedriven. “[Humans] are running the most dangerous experiment in history right now,” he said, “which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere … can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.” Musk used his first-mover advantage to set the stage for the eventual end of carbon-combustion autos. Tesla’s Roadster hit the road in 2008, quickly followed by the Model S in 2012. Most recently, the Model 3 launched as an “affordable” vehicle for the average consumer.