Three Halifax-area entrepreneurs have hit start on a refurbished electric vehicle sales and training facility they say is unlike any other in the country.
“We buy EVs that have been in accidents and we fix them up for resale,” says All EV Canada CEO Jeff Farwell.
“It’s a pretty cool thing we’re doing.”
So far, they have put roughly $2.5 million into six-month-old All EV Canada. The startup employs eight, including engineers, mechanics and sales and administration staff at its facility in Dartmouth's Burnside Park.
Prices for used electric vehicles, much like those for internal combustion engine cars, vary based on the model, year and condition, but Farwell says buyers of electric vehicles can usually save themselves about $10,000 with a refurbished car rather than a new one. He’s hoping that the lower sticker price will be enough to win over buyers who have reservations about the higher cost of going green with the family car.
Beyond buying, fixing up and reselling electric vehicles and the parts, All EV Canada trains first responders so they can work safely with these vehicles during emergencies.
Below is a very basic example of the training they provide:
The company is set up independent of any particular automaker, a rarity in this fledgling industry.
“We are educators,” says Farwell.
“We educate people on EVs, all the cool stuff and features.”
Farwell is best known as the former operator of Murphy’s Cable Wharf tours, which eventually merged with Ambassatours Gray Line. In 2017, Farwell sold his equity stake in Ambassatours for an undisclosed amount.
At All EV Canada, he’s teaming up with Jérémie Bernardin, president and co-founder of the Electric Vehicle Association of Atlantic Canada, and David Giles, a former Nova Scotia Community College training facilitator.
It was Giles who led the team that adapted an electromagnetic drive-line retarder commonly used on large-haul trucks on mountain roads to the Harbour Hoppers a few years ago. That innovation saved the big amphibious vehicles’ brake pads from burning up.
Giles, All EV Canada’s vice-president, is spearheading the conversion of a Tesla into an educational and training tool. It’s due to be unveiled soon.
The company is keeping mum on exactly what it will entail, but in a video Giles describes some of the early plans. Those include removing the left-side doors, cutting the front bumper and hood in half to reveal the circuitry and taking off a rear side panel to showcase the Tesla’s charging port.
“The battery is going to come out of the vehicle,” says Giles in that video.
“We’re going to take the (rear) seat out, showcase under the battery cover so you see the electronics and AC-DC converter (and) the coolant lines.
“We’ll be able to power the car up as if it was operational, and there will be some games and some functions so you’ll be able to see what the Tesla looks like when it powers up.”
Farwell says the training vehicle will be loaned to universities and colleges.
More videos are available on their YouTube page.
