Sierra D’Souza Butts, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The World-Spectator
A couple from Harrison, B.C passed through Moosomin on July 21, during their journey of travelling across Canada in their 2023 Hyundai IONIQ 6 electric vehicle.
With the goal of reaching the other side of the country by the end of August, the two also hope to show how sustainable electric cars can be.
“I have a Youtube channel, Ed’s Garage, I also sell cars for a living at a Hyundai dealership,”said Edward van Tunen.
“You hear a lot about EVs not being good for road trips, not being good for travelling, the charging infrastructure is not that good, and all that stuff, I wanted to prove a point, but at the same time we wanted a vacation.
“We thought why don’t we do that with the car, just to prove that it is possible. We’re taking our time, we’re doing it slowly so that we can explore the different sites along the way as well.”
van Tunen said they plan to go as far as they can in the country before the school year begins, as one of their kids is still in school.
“We’ve always wanted to do this trip across Canada and to the United States,” said van Tunen.
“We’re either going to go as far as Montréal, Quebec or we may go to P.E.I., but come back and go south through the United States, probably down to Virginia and then back up on Route 66 and take it back down to the west into Canada.”
Based on the road trip, van Tunen said he hopes people can see how EVs can be good for the environment.
“Sustainability is on the top of people’s minds when they are looking into this sort of thing,” he said.
“I think just going outside right now and seeing all the smoke in the air is probably a good reason to consider something like this, regardless of your views on climate change whether it is being accelerated due to man made causes or not, I think we can all agree that it couldn’t hurt to reduce emissions.
“Based on how the climate is right now with all the smoke in the air, I’m hoping that this will bring some attention to the fact that EVs aren’t all difficult.”
He was asked why he would encourage people to use EVs.
“I don’t encourage everyone because at this time they don’t necessarily work for everything for everyone,” he said.
“They are still quite expensive. Basically for anyone who is driving for more than half an hour commute to work and back, we’ll say 50 kilometres or more, if you buy the right EV you can start to save money within a couple of years.
“Because we know that EVs are dirtier to produce and they take a while to actually start to be cleaner, but financially speaking, they can make a lot of sense because you start to save money on gas within a few years as well, if you buy the right EV and if you drive enough.”
So far driving across Canada has been an exciting journey, said van Tunen.
“We’ve never been this far through Canada before. The farthest we’ve ever been prior to this is Edmonton,” he said.
“Just the experience of seeing everything new has been great.
“What actually blew my mind was, a lot of people would say to me ‘you’re going to be so bored driving through the Prairies,’ but I was unprepared to how beautiful some things are, like the canola fields. They’re stunning.
“We’ve also been to Drumheller which was awesome, we spent a day there.”
He spoke about what they are looking forward to for the rest of their road trip.
“We don’t have anything planned in Manitoba, not that I’m aware of. The next thing will be Lake of the Woods Ontario, we’re really looking forward to that,” he said.
“Also Niagara Falls, Montreal, Canada’s Wonderland, those are things we’re looking forward to.”
People can follow the couple’s journey through van Tunen’s Youtube channel: Ed’s Garage.
