Ontario to test plug-in cars

Well, sort of. At its Scarborough headquarters recently, Toyota Canada handed over the keys to one of its new Prius Plug-In Hybrids, which it will be lending to Ontario for a year.

The hybrid car — which can be recharged by plugging it into an electrical outlet — is on loan to four “testing” partners, including the province’s energy and transportation ministries, the City of Toronto, Ontario Power Generation and Auto21, a national automotive research network.

Toyota plans to start selling the model in 2012 and is currently testing the vehicle in pilot projects around the world. Each test car has been outfitted with telecommunications technologies that will feed data back to Toyota about the vehicleÂ’s performance and driver habits.

Meanwhile, the borrowers have a unique opportunity to test-drive the realities of an electrically powered future.

“The government’s vision is by 2020, one in every 20 vehicles in the province will be powered by electricity,” said Rick Jennings, assistant deputy minister for the Ministry of Energy. He said the province hopes to eventually add 500 electric cars to its public service fleet.

“The minister of energy is fond of saying: the provincial government needs to plug in all the innovation that is going on out there.”

According to Toyota, the plug-in hybrid has a battery that can produce speeds of nearly 100 kilometres per hour. The battery also lasts for about 20 kilometres — approximately the distance between Toronto City Hall and Scarborough City Centre — before the hybrid mode has to kick in.

Using a 220-volt outlet, the car recharges in 90 minutes, but using a 110-volt outlet — which most homes already have — a full recharge takes about three hours. Assuming Toronto Hydro’s off-peak rates, this translates to a cost of about 26 cents every time you charge your car, said a Toyota spokesperson.

Toronto will get the plug-in hybrid for three months, during which the car will be added to the cityÂ’s fleet of public service vehicles. The city is not paying Toyota for use of the car, but will cover all operating costs, said deputy mayor and mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone, who attended the launch.

Pantalone conceded Toronto will have to upgrade its infrastructure if the city is to truly embrace the electric car — everything from installing charging stations around the city to finding solutions for outfitting underground parking lots to accommodate plug-in cars.

But the greater challenge will be in getting Torontonians to trust new eco-friendly technologies, he said.

“I think Torontonians are waiting for the private sector to develop the technology,” he said. “Once it does, Torontonians will jump like you wouldn’t believe, because we are a green city and proud of it.”