Electric Vehicle Performance in Extreme Winter Conditions

By Wayne Sum and Bill Franklin

Introduction

Few denizens of Canadian cities give thought to the sophisticated and robust civic infrastructure and organization that enables a safe and enjoyable life whether uptown, downtown or in suburbia. Clean, well lit, well built and maintained streets, effective policing, parking, garbage collection, water and sewage, libraries, parades, medical centers among a multitude of other services all directly impact the satisfaction and safety of city residents.

Management of a dynamic and resilient city will consider key factors that can be employed in an emergency, whether it be political protests, rampant homelessness to fires, flooding or intense cold and blinding snow.

As the fires in California vividly attest, global warming and drought has intensified the desire to reduce reliance on internal combustion engines in favour of electric vehicles  that get their energy for locomotion directly from the sun, wind or water (hydroelectric). In this article, we look at the challenges of achieving an all-electric fleet while retaining the resilience required from municipal services.

Massive fires in Ventura county California, seen by author driving on Highway 101 from LA to Santa Barbara on November 6, 2024.

Consideration of EV’s touch on the following topics:

• Saskatoon’s Electric Vehicle goals
• Electric Vehicle (EV) performance in general
• A closer look: Nissan Leaf
• Winter Driving Conditions and impact on EV driving range
• Theoretical look at
  • Impact of cold on battery performance
  • Impact of cold on power consumption
• Real World Tests: Consumer Reports, American Automobile Association
• City of Saskatoon’s pilot EV experience
• Recommendations to advance electrical vehicle utilization

The road to reducing Saskatoon’s carbon footprint starts here…

By Ebby Zachariah and Chris Perry

Over the past 20 years mixed-use development has become a staple of urban development in Canadian cities. It’s easy to see its appeal for developers and property owners. By combining several different use cases within a single development, developers and owners can benefit from a variety of potential revenue sources. And the diversity of uses can provide stability because when one sector slows down there will be one or more other uses remaining to pick up the slack.

Typically, owners and developers—and urban planners, for that matter—view mixed use solely in the traditional context of a development combining parking, and then some mix of retail, commercial, residential, and/or entertainment development. But there’s another form of mixed-use development that’s worth considering: parking. Yes, just parking.

As parking professionals, we instinctively understand how a development that revolves solely around parking can be an example of mixed-use. Most parking facilities serve multiple user groups. These groups have different needs, use parking assets differently, and may pay different rates. This is true of commercial, residential, and even institutional development with parking assets.

When parking owners start to think about their parking assets in this context, it opens up a whole new world of revenue and tenant amenity opportunities.

A Whole New Ballgame: Parking Management Technology

Until recently, it wasn’t possible to manage parking assets effectively and efficiently when there were multiple use cases. Parking had to be treated as an afterthought at best—and a throw-in at worst—because parking management wasn’t automated. It was just too costly and time-consuming to manage different parking use cases by hand.

With the emergence of parking management software platforms, however, owners can now manage each user group differently, providing access to specific areas of a parking facility, offering access at…

What does the parking industry allocate as an average spend for Audit/Loss Prevention as a percentage of gross revenue?