A Toronto landlord is banning electric vehicles on its property. Tenants' advocates say that's 'unreasonable'
A Toronto landlord is banning electric vehicles on its property. Tenants' advocates say that's 'unreasonable'
A Toronto landlord is banning electric vehicles on its property. Tenants' advocates say that's 'unreasonable'
While this seems to be more aimed at scooters and the like, I've been waiting for electric vehicles and renters to become an issue.
Landlords are going to try to avoid putting in electric car charging points for as long as they can. They simply don't want to spend the money.
The issue is a little more nuanced than that. Most buildings can only install a few EV chargers before they need to upgrade the mains, and if that needs to be done, the transformers likely aren’t adequate, and the local grid may not be able to withstand it as well.
The owners costs ends at the transformers, taxpayers and the energy corp are in for the rest, and until the energy corp upgrades the grid and transformers, building owners can only do so much.
If the infrastructure can't handle it, then upgrade the fucking infrastructure! Politicians will fall at voters' feet to build new roads, highways, etc., but when it comes to the green energy transition, there's no problem too minuscule to be ignored!
I'll happily admit that there are going to be many issues in the green energy transition; we should acknowledge them, but we should also strive to address them, rather than throwing our hands up in the air and idly promulgating the status quo.
"The grid can't handle it" is a bullshit argument that is easy to sell to people who want to keep their IC cars. The difference between highest demand and lowest demand in Ontario this week was 7000MW, if everyone charges their car at night there is power available AND it helps increase the base load which is good for the gird operators.
Even individual buildings may not need to upgrade their main service even with rapid chargers, the operators just need to keep in mind not to run the oven, dryer, AC and car charger at the same time.
I own an electric car and I accept maybe I've been luckier than most but my last basement suite the landlord put it in completely of his own will and his own dime at my request. He reused some old hot tub wiring and it worked great. And my current apartment I had them pick their preferred electrical company and paid for it myself since it was just a plug like 3 feet down from their sub panel.
So far I've not had a ton of issues finding places. It definitely limits where you can live with some places only having street parking or just not having the capability of putting in a charger or plug but there are definitely places out there
Look, if the rich don't want you to have a house, they certainly don't want you have a car.
In all seriousness, this is why it's called late-stage capitalism: because at this point, it's going to be fatal to it's host. We're nearing the point where there less and less value to extract from labour because they're already underpaid for the value they generate and over-leveraged because debt was an easy substitute. At the same time, the wealthy are increasingly desperate for ever-larger returns.
Electric cars, if not personal transit in general, are probably going to be the iceberg that the ship of capitalism breaks on: the wealthy don't want to pay taxes for roads and charging infrastructure, and they don't want to pay for public transit, but they also don't want you to have a home where you can charge your own car. But they want you to buy stuff, and they expect electric cars to sell for higher prices than gas ones.
Something has to give, here.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tenants' rights advocates are raising legal concerns about a Toronto building complex that's banning electric transportation vehicles from the property, including in units, the garage, parking spaces and lockers.
Notices were posted this week at 110 and 120 Jameson Avenue in Parkdale, owned by Oberon Development Corporation, to alert tenants to the ban.
The Residential Tenancies Act guarantees a tenant's right to the "reasonable enjoyment" of the premises, Kwan pointed out.
Beyond that, said Kwan, if a person has a disability and relies on an electric vehicle due to mobility restrictions, such a ban could infringe on their human rights.
The devices are also environmentally friendly, said Mason, adding having more Torontonians rely on alternative transportation is helpful to combat climate change.
"This is a great solution for families who live in the buildings because it makes life more affordable by eliminating the cost of private car ownership," said Ian Klesmer, the director of strategy and grants at TAF.
The original article contains 915 words, the summary contains 157 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Electric vehicles are better than combustion but they are not "environmentally friendly"
Let’s not propagate this argument disingenuously. Electric cars aren’t perfect, but a quick check of the history of the combustion engine will tell us that sufficient time and R&D will take care of many of the mining and materials issues that exist in current electric car manufacturing processes.
This is about e-bikes and e-kickscooters and e-boards and the like, not electric cars. They are absolutely environment friendly - the amount of materials needed to build an e-bike or e-scooter is nothing compared to a car. They're ideal for dense, urban, human-scale cities because they use the same infrastructure as bicycles for travel.
117 comments and I can not find mine and only see maybe 20 of those. Edit: now they are back, 2 hours later.
Landlord didn't approve of the other messages
And the top comments are all boomers typing "what about electrical fires!" never mind that half the people these days seem to sleep with a wired lithium-powered phone fast-charging next to them, if not in bed with them. Those batteries might be smaller, but that's surrounded by flammable wood and fabric not a concrete parking garage. But that's my phone and e-bike riders are other people.
There are scenarios where this is reasonable. If cars are parked below housing units. The risk of fire from the electric battery that can't be controlled, might be too great for their insurance carrier.
Maybe if it were 2009 lol. EVs don't randomly catch fire anymore. Even if it were true, with what Toronto landlords charge, they can afford an insurance bump.
The remaining fire risk/safety issues tend to be with dodgy cheap batteries used as replacements in ebikes and the like, and there are ways to mitigate even those risks (fireproof charging lockers, anyone?). Electric cars are much more heavily safety-tested, and I would say that at this point in their evolution they're no more likely to catch fire spontaneously than an ICE car.
Plus, some of those parking spaces are probably reserved for visitors, right? You think they're going to go out and rent an ICE car just to visit this place? There will be EVs on the premises anyway, as they gain market share in general.