500+ Teslas and EVs parade the Montreal Champlain Bridge as the opening ceremony

500+ Teslas and electric vehicles had the honor to be the first ones crossing Montreal, Canada’s Samuel de Champlain Bridge which opened at 5:00 am Monday this week — the 2.1 miles long bridge took 4 years to be constructed, it is longer than the Golden Gate Bridge which is 1.7 miles long.

Currently, the bridge is only opened to the northbound traffic, the southbound path is scheduled to open next Monday — a large meetup of around 520+ EV owners and enthusiasts gathered at the location before the opening and were the first ones to cross the bridge, our co-author and Tesla Owners Online podcast co-host Ian Pavelko was one of the most excited Tesla owners present at the event (his full report video below).

Most EV owners like Ian had to wake up around 2:00 am in the morning to reach the destination and take part in the first-ever electric vehicle parade as the opening ceremony, now it’s a historical fact that the first cars ever to cross the Samuel de Champlain Bridge were ‘electric’, period.

In the above picture of the new Champlain Bridge, we can see there is train track in the middle of the bridge, according to CBC reporter Isaac Olson, this track will be used for the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) electric train by 2021, a large rapid transit project underway for the Greater Montreal and Quebec Metropolitans.

After completion, this bridge will be the busiest bridge in Canada facilitating an estimated 159,000 vehicles per day, and after the completion of the REM light rail project the number of people using the rapid transit route is estimated to be 11 million annually.

The bridge crossing event for Teslas and EVs was organized by Club Tesla Quebec and AVEQ — event organizers and concerned authorities should be proud of themselves in creating history, this is the start of the electric vehicle revolution in Canada.

The video above by Ian Pavelko/Tesla Owners Online also includes some great visuals from during the construction of the bridge since the start of the project in 2015, the Montreal Champlain Bridge was scheduled to open last December but massive projects like this getting delayed is nothing new.

Ian was also able to take some great pictures at the event including his Tesla Model 3 Performance aka ‘Magneto’ found in the following photo gallery.