CROSSFIELD, Alberta – Electric-car charging stations are still remarkably rare at gas stations, but earlier this year, the Petro-Canada station in Crossfield, Alberta, installed a charging station. It's free to use, too. What makes this station even more remarkable is that it’s located in the heart of Canada's tar-sands oil region, writes Green Car Reports.

The Crossfield station is about 30 miles north of Calgary, Canada's fossil-fuel capital, along Highway 2, which connects the business center to the provincial capital of Edmonton. At a distance of about 185 miles, only a Tesla electric vehicle can cover the distance in one charge.

Gasoline producer and retailer Petro-Canada – a division of Suncor, the world's largest producer of tar-sands bitumen – isn't necessarily making a push to be plug-in electric vehicle owners' pit stop of choice. The Petro-Canada station in Crossfield is independently owned and operated by a franchisee, operating about 20 gas stations across Canada. Depending how well things go with this pilot installation, they may consider adding electric vehicle infrastructure to other stations as well.

Green Car Reports quoted a company representative explaining that the electric-vehicle outreach is another way of providing services to motorists, "and that's what we do."