Hong Kong Electrifies

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Now here is the perfect place for electric vehicles: Hong Kong. Range anxiety? Not here. Hong Kong is a city where no trip is more than 20 miles or so one way. Driving into the hinterlands is blocked by a border and by the necessity for secondary mainland Chinese license plates. Registration taxes on cars are high, they vary from 35% to over 100%, based on the size and value of the car. Gasoline prices are high, about half of the price is tax. Fertile grounds for EVs.

Yesterday, the Hong Kong Government opened two new charging stations, one at the Hong Kong Star Ferry Pier and the Hong Kong Queen’s Pier. To celebrate the occasion, EV drivers could charge free of charge.

According to Gasgoo, the Hong Kong government has already built 39 charging stations, and is planning to add 23 more this year. Now if they would be really serious, they would lower the tax on the cars. But as there is no HK production, this is unlikely to happen. Wait! There is a home- grown EV called MyCar, developed by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and EuAuto Technology Limited.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
 3 comments
  • Blowfish Blowfish on Jun 18, 2010

    Being grew up there, I know is a real tiny place. For Evs is ideal, but the hydro or voltages is coming from Coal fire gen, so whatever they save on Benzene or diesel they will pocket the difference. The place is very much all plugged up with cars, crawl along at Glacial pace, or your pet Escargot would move much faster. None the less Fragrance Harbour aka Scented little Port /HK has been a place for Expensive cars, RR sold 10% of her production there, so as the 3 pointed stars, fast cars with Horses, Bull, Tridents, Lotus etc were greatly represented there. Several yrs ago they did tried to go for Biodiesel for the petty bourgeois but one of the head honcho perhaps took some secret allegiance from the 7 sisters ( oel cartels ) kind of decided BD was not a swell idea as it gave off too much Nitrogen ( or something less sinister than CO) Anyways, the BD was a no go, kind of sad too.

  • Blowfish Blowfish on Jun 18, 2010

    Also an inherent benefit for EVs is when u're stuck in traffic u dont use any juices/electicity other than the HVAC system, or radio. The radio power consumption is really miniscule unless u have a 2000 watts stereo. HVAC can suck up juices though. Then if they have regen brake it could catch some back, HK side has a few hills, basically a rock island. Some building were built on slopes, a fnd is an engineer, he went for site scouting and find it hard to walk at all, but modern engineering can do wonders even if it were hanged upside down.

  • Silverkris Silverkris on Jun 19, 2010

    That would be great to have more electric cars in HK. I used to live/work there, still visit there annually. Air pollution is a big problem there - the proliferation of taller and taller buildings tends to make for "canyons" in places like Causeway Bay that trap vehicle exhaust. Cars are quite expensive to own there - a very high registration/tax fee, not to mention the costs of parking! Where I lived 10 years ago they had monthly parking at about US$400-500/month. That will buy an awful lot of taxi rides, not to mention train and bus fares (which are inexpensive).

Next