Electric vehicle convert’s YouTube channel chronicles his life, times and travels, with Ford F-150 Lightning

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Born in Uganda, Lindley lived a large portion of his life in Alberta – including Edmonton and Canmore. Early on, he embraced art, design and music and trained at art college. However, to earn a living, he took on various side gigs and soon the side gig became his life. In 2004, he moved to Vancouver Island where he worked his way up to newspaper publisher. When that job ended in 2015, he said goodbye to his career and weekend Blues Cubed blues trio, loaded up his RV and toured solo with his wife. While on the road, the two of them found property for sale on a mountain in the Kootenays, bought the house and moved there.

So, when he began driving his Lightning, he was enthusiastic about not having to be tied to a maintenance schedule, other than adding windshield washer fluid and periodically rotating the tires. Plus, with the addition of a Level II charger at home, he could plug in during the evening and drive off in the morning with an 80 per cent charge that would see him make his daily rounds, often towing a trailer, for a fraction of the cost.

“But clients, neighbours and the overall community all kept telling me I was crazy for buying an EV, and they all told me what I couldn’t do with this truck,” he recalls. “There was so much FUD — or fear, uncertainty and doubt — about these EVs. Everyone said I couldn’t tow, I couldn’t haul, I couldn’t travel, that it would catch on fire. I’m a bit of a curmudgeon, so if someone tells me I can’t do something, I want to prove that I can. Plus, I wanted to put out something positive and illuminate how cool these vehicles are and show what they can do.”

YouTube was the ideal platform for him. With enough subscribers and views, he’d be able to earn a degree of income, and he was finally able to fully embrace his creative, theatrical side. “I’m a complete goof, and I love acting and hamming it up,” he laughs.

EV charging – Everything you need to know

“There are gaps in the electric charging systems,” he explains. “The best provinces are those where the system is a public utility, including B.C. New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Quebec. The ones where the utility has been privatized are not as good.”

He also maintains there needs to be a national standard in the charging infrastructure. Several times, he came across a charger that was broken. Lindley was never stuck at the side of the road, but several times he did coast into a charging station at zero or slightly negative. Luckily, when that did happen, the chargers were functioning.

“There was no maintenance standard for chargers, and that’s terrible, in my opinion,” he says. But he is an EV convert. Of his F-150 Lightning, he jokes and concludes, “I feel like a geeky kid who got his Back to the Future DeLorean.”

Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have a column tip? Contact him at 403-287-1067 or [email protected]

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