Bill McCormick is the owner of the second electric hybrid plug-in vehicle on the North Island.
The Department of Transport owns the other one, a Toyota Highlander plugin, which is currently in use at the Port Hardy Airport. McCormick bought his 2016 Ford C-Max plug-in hybrid July 4 from Dave Landon Motors in Port Hardy, who went through Brown Brothers Ford in Vancouver.
He decided to purchase it because he’d driven Volkswagens for years, “and they had their legal problems with too much nitrous oxide - so I got fed up and got rid of my Volkswagen.”
In September 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many Volkswagen cars being sold had a “defeat device” - or software - in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results. The German car giant has since admitted to cheating emissions tests in the USA.
McCormick can travel 33 kilometres on a flat road with no gasoline being used in his Ford C-Max plugin hybrid.
“It’s 44 kilometres from Port McNeill to Port Hardy. My gas engine didn’t start up before I was well beyond the Port Alice turn off,” said McCormick. “Driving around Port McNeill I don’t use gasoline at all, it’s all electric.”
He added that one of the advantages of owning his car is “you can plug it into your 110 (standard household current) and charge it up.”
McCormick ultimately wants to help the local communities “get rid of their fears that you can’t get to Campbell River on a hybrid,” adding that most people with solely electric hybrids pick either “Sayward or Woss to use a 220 plug-in station. There are also four 220 plug-in stations in Port Hardy.”
Port McNeill currently has no plugin stations available, but Council will be meeting to discuss the issue in September/October.
“People have to realize that we have failed drastically with the Kyoto Protocol (an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions) here in Canada,” said McCormick. “To help reduce the carbon emissions I was going through, I switched to a hybrid.”