In many ways it seems like the perfect way to travel. With zero tailpipe emissions, super-quiet transmissions, rapidly increasing ranges and low running costs, electric vehicles are heralded for their ability to quickly and effectively reduce roadside pollution, thereby improving local air quality. However, in Hong Kong at least, they are seemingly still a novelty. That’s something the government says it’s striving to change.
There are 611 electric vehicles in Hong Kong, a marked increase from the 100 cars on our roads in 2010. While the majority of these are privately owned, 159 of them are in the government’s fleet. And we’ve got one electric bus route, part of a year-long trial run for KMB. But there are only 45 electric taxis on our roads at the moment, all produced by Chinese manufacturer BYD.
One taxi drives – roughly – 400km a day in our city. These vehicles reportedly contribute a whopping 20 percent of the city’s road mileage every day. That means replacing the city’s 18,000 taxis with electrically powered vehicles could make a tangible difference towards reducing roadside pollution, particularly as official figures show that 80 percent of LPG taxis have a defective ‘catalytic convertor’ – and it’s this convertor that filters around 90 percent of the pollution they emit. The government’s ongoing Clean Air Plan states that LPG-powered taxis and minibuses with worn out convertors are the main sources of roadside nitrogen dioxide emissions in Hong Kong.
The government is now catching on to electric transport. In the policy address back in January, CY Leung promised to ‘promote the use of electric vehicles’ by testing out more electric buses and providing more chargers for electric taxis. He even promised to drive an electric car himself, albeit on a ‘trial basis’.
The Transport Department says it is soon launching a pilot scheme in six car parks, which will see 50 new electric taxi chargers installed, as taxis need faster, higher capacity chargers than private cars. There are currently 47 chargers in 12 locations.
But the question remains, despite the government’s moves: are local cabbies interested in making the switch to electric? One driver is clearly an advocate. Lau Chi-yan has been driving an electric taxi since October last year and he does regular pickups from the airport, where there are three dedicated, free taxi chargers. He tells us that driving electric isn’t any cheaper – ‘the rental cost is the same and money saved on LPG is counterbalanced by time spent waiting for the cab to charge’. But Lau nevertheless says he stopped driving LPG because it’s ‘better for my health – and for the Earth’.
Lau is happy with his taxi’s performance so far – ‘on the highway, no-one can catch me!’ – but he’s not happy with the effort it takes to charge the vehicle up. “It takes two hours to fully charge the taxi,” he says, “but we can only use the chargers at the airport for 45 minutes each time. Sometimes, we take people to the airport and then there’s not enough electricity left to go back. Then we’re waiting and waiting [for a space to charge]. There are only three chargers. We really need five or 10. Once, I gave up waiting and went to use a charger in Tsuen Wan instead. But my taxi slowed down and stopped in the middle of the Tsing Ma Bridge!”
Another problem at the airport, specifically, is that electric taxis have to charge and then join the rank at the back, meaning it can be several hours before they pick up their next passenger. Lau hopes the government will provide more dedicated taxi chargers soon. “They said they’d put one in Tung Chung but it’s been three months,” he says. “We’re just waiting and waiting. If charging remains a big problem, maybe I will give up. Many of my friends have given up already.” BYD tells us that five new stations at Tung Chung will ‘open soon’.
Dr Hung Wing-tat is associate professor of civil and structural engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and lectures in transport management. “The real issue [about charging taxis] is the space, the land,” he points out. “The private sector won’t ever offer dedicated space for taxis to charge, because if you don’t allow people to park there, you’re losing income.”
Philip Tsing has driven an LPG taxi for 23 years. He is dismissive of giving it up. “Electric taxis are basically an experiment,” he argues. “You don’t know how well they will perform. It’s more like for fun! I worry about the life expectancy of the battery. Also, taking two or four hours from your day to charge it up? That’s time that you could be spending with your family.”
If the government follows through soon with its promise to provide more chargers for taxis, at least some of the drivers’ concerns could be alleviated. However, not everyone is convinced that this is going to be a seamless transition. “We welcome electric vehicles – but if you look at real polluters, in terms of emissions, that’s actually diesel vehicles, mainly buses and trucks,” says Kwong Sum-yin, chief executive officer of local NGO, Clean Air Network. “We’d have more results if the government would prioritise this. We still have around 30 percent of minibuses running on diesel – it would be a good incentive if we could look at that.”
Last year, the government’s Clean Air Plan detailed a scheme to retire diesel trucks and retrofit engines on old buses. But this isn’t due until 2019. “Maybe they think they’re already doing enough here”, says Kwong. “But we’d like to see more things done to speed up the replacement of all the vehicles. Our fuel standard is Euro V now, but [the less polluting] Euro VI is already being used in Europe! Why are we always chasing?”
James Middleton, chairman of local charity Clear the Air, is not sold on electric taxis. “They need hybrids here,” he argues. “Electric cabs need to recharge and that means burning coal to generate electricity. There aren’t even enough recharge points – it’s a problem. Hybrids, which can run for 24 hours continuously, would issue less pollution than the electric cars that have downtime off the road for recharging.”
Hybrid taxis, which switch between petrol and electricity, don’t need charging – they do it while moving. Yet, they haven’t proven hugely popular yet, perhaps as they are more expensive to buy than regular LPG cabs. They then also need to use petrol, which is not tax exempted. “Hybrids don’t offer a big enough saving,” says Dr Hung, “unless the government thinks of a way to make them financially more attractive, perhaps by having tax-free petrol.”
While it remains to be seen what the impact of the government’s pilot scheme for more chargers will be on our city’s taxi drivers, the authority also plans to purchase 36 electric buses and trial them in the city before the end of this year. It’s looking like a slow process – but it seems there’s some spark of hope here for cleaner, quieter streets.
