Inuvik’s town council has approved staff entering an agreement with Tesla for an electric vehicle charging station in front of the Midnight Sun Complex.
Councillors voted in favour of pursuing a 10-year agreement during an October 28 meeting.
“The station could also improve visitor services, support electric vehicle tourism, and help promote Inuvik as a northern destination with fast-charging services,” council documents stated.
According to those documents, Tesla approached the town earlier in the summer asking to install a Supercharger – the brand name for its fast-charging stations. The proposal is to install two to five charging stalls, with Tesla covering the installation and operating costs.
Tesla would also be responsible for maintaining the station, while the town is responsible for snow removal. The company would pay Inuvik $200 a month to use the site and would pay for electricity.
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The chargers would be operational 24 hours a day, all year.
According to Tesla’s website, Superchargers offer vehicles range of up to 322 km in a 15-minute charge.
This kind of charging infrastructure is still hard to come by in much of the NWT and along the Dempster Highway into Yukon, though it does exist in places. Tuktoyaktuk, for example, announced it had installed chargers in 2024.
The Inuvik proposal includes up to 400 square feet of space on the property, and the potential for Tesla to install solar panels and an energy storage system.
Discussing the agreement, councillors raised concerns about how large the storage system would be and asked staff to specify the area of the storage system in the final agreement.
