Montréal EV Parade Guinness Record : Complete Report

by Eric Carrière · Published April 20, 2014 · Updated September 3, 2014

This past April 18th and 19th was the 2nd edition of Get Connected Day where the CNTA (National Advanced Transportation Center) invited the general public to test drive electric vehicles on the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montréal. The goal of this event was to give the opportunity to the general public to meet and talk with EV owners, try a variety of EVs and consult with EV centric businesses.

Photo Credit : Club Tesla Québec

Guinness World Record

To mark the event’s second anniversary, the organizers decided to attempt to break a Guinness World Record. They were inspired by an EV owner’s comment on Roulezelectrique.com. The Guinness World Record is for the largest parade of EVs. That record was set in July 2013 and consisted of 305 EVs, in Zurich, Switzerland.

On a cold Friday, EVs trickled in the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve and were asked to park by their make and model in the large parking area. Most of these drivers had pre-registered their cars weeks ago in anticipation of the event. The excitement slowly built up as more and more cars arrived in a 3-4 hour span. During this time the EV owners got to socialize, take pictures and admire each others cars. This was also a chance for a lot of these drivers to put a face to a name by finally meeting in person after chatting together on various social media.

Photo Credit : DroneBox

Here’s the breakdown of the various EVs at the event for a grand total of 438 EVs !

178 Chevrolet Volt	94 Nissan Leaf	59 Tesla Model S	20 Mitsubishi iMiev
16 Ford Focus Electric	11 Smart ED	11 Toyota Prius Plug-in	10 converted vehicles
7 Ford C-Max Energi	6 Ford Fusion Energi	3 Lito Sora	3 Tesla Roadster
3 VBV	3 Zero	2 Cadillac ELR	1
1 Fisker Karma	1 V-Trux	1 LTS Electric Boat