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.