Electric vehicle giant Tesla — owned by mercurial entrepreneur Elon Musk — is getting a rough ride from Port Coquitlam over its unwillingness to put in public charging stations.
“Strong resistance” from the car maker to put in chargers at its massive delivery hub on property located at 1032 Nicola Ave. is “disappointing,” to several councillors and the city’s mayor, who considered rezoning for the property at a July 25 council meeting..
“I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want that infrastructure in place which is only going to support your business,” said Mayor Brad West.
“I can’t imagine we should’ve had to twist an arm that hard.”
Coun. Steve Darling said there are 650 parking spaces planned for the site and it shouldn’t be too difficult to designate a few for chargers the public can use.
“Right now, I don’t think there’s that much as far as charging on that side of the city,” Darling said.
Another councillor refused to support the rezoning on the grounds that the land is designated agricultural in the city’s official community plan.
Councillor. Nancy McCurrach said even “slivers” of agricultural land should be saved.
Still, council gave second reading to the proposal by Bosa Properties to rezone the property, along with another at 1021 Nicola Ave.
Coun. Glenn Pollock said the delivery hub will provide 80 “good-paying” jobs and will be a “service to residents who have Teslas and need them serviced.”
West, meanwhile, noted that the property hasn’t been used for agricultural purposes for a long time and said he expected the EV carmaker would hear from the public about the lack of Tesla car chargers in the city, one of Vancouver’s eastern-most suburbs.
He urged the company to consider putting in public car chargers, suggesting that “may be what the public will say” at a public hearing this fall.
If approved and built over the next several months, the 60,000 sq-ft. facility located in the Dominion Triangle area just off Lougheed Highway, will serve as the primary location for delivering Tesla vehicles in the Lower Mainland.
Vehicles will arrive from the U.S. and Shanghai for delivery to Tesla dealerships, according to a letter by Bosa Properties.
The Tesla centre in PoCo will also operate as a service facility, offering a mobile service to fix cars at people’s homes as well as those requiring repairs at the larger facility.
About 50 cars a day would be serviced at the PoCo facility, according to Bosa.
Tesla’s reticence in putting in public chargers comes as the company is looking at putting in thousands across Canada.
In June, Telus signed a partnership with an Australian EV charging company, Jolt, announcing plans to install up to 5,000 stations across Canada.
According to chargemap.com, Coquitlam has a Tesla supercharging centre in Woolridge Centre off Lougheed Highway.
