Kawartha Lakes considering transforming its vehicle fleet to fully electric

DAN CEARNS, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, for The Standard

KAWARTHA LAKES: The City of Kawartha Lakes is looking into possibly moving their entire vehicle fleet over to electric vehicles in the coming years.

The idea was brought up by Ward 4 Councillor Andrew Veale, at a meeting on Tuesday, February 23rd, during a discussion on the City’s fleet services review.

“Speaking from experience in the automotive industry, right now the manufacturers are moving very quickly to change everything over to electric,” Councillor Veale explained. “In the last four weeks, I’ve been in a number of meetings with General Motors as to the retail expectations of dealers. GM has moved their timeline up considerably, to the point that by 2025 they’ll have 30, fully 100 percent electric vehicles on the market ready for sale. And they’re in the process of having their retail dealer network set up to service them, sell them, and have public-facing charging stations installed at their locations. GM’s plan is by 2030, they will not be producing gas vehicles anymore.”

Ward 8 Councillor Tracy Richardson supported Councillor Veale’s idea.

“I think this is a good supporting memo, so we can look [to] the future,” she said.

Councillors later passed a motion to have a feasibility plan and timeline, to transform the city’s fleet to fully electric, created and brought to council by the end of this year.

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