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Written by: Yang Yingwei
2021-03-21 21:05
Last update date: 2021-03-21 21:05
The Environment Bureau published the first "Roadmap for the Popularization of Electric Vehicles in Hong Kong" (hereinafter referred to as the "Roadmap") last Wednesday (March 17), stipulating that at least 155,000 charging facilities will be provided by 2025, and new facilities will be stopped by 2035. The ambitious goal of registering petrol private cars.
However, compared with the greening pace of the SAR government in the past ten years, there are only 18,500 electric private cars and 4,500 charging stations so far, which is only 10% of the target set in the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines in 2011. It is unavoidable to worry about " The Road Map will also fail again.
Looking at the details of the "Roadmap" policy, and then looking back at the SAR government's road to promote electric vehicles, it also exposes three major administrative drawbacks, including policy separation, short-sighted planning, and the authorities' failure to lead by example.
It is not difficult to foresee that if the "small government" mindset does not change, green transportation will still be far away in the foreseeable future.
Policy off-ground
charging devices in short supply, car owners prefer to travel by bus
Seventy percent of people driving on Hong Kong’s roads are private cars. Promoting an increase in the proportion of electric private cars is naturally one of the important ways to "new energy" in the entire transportation system.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government revised the "Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines" as early as 2011, and set a target that 30% of private cars should be electric or hybrid vehicles by 2020.
However, as of December last year, there were about 650,000 private cars in Hong Kong, but fuel vehicles (gasoline and diesel vehicles) accounted for 97%, and electric vehicles accounted for less than 3%
(Figure 1)
, which only reached the level set for that year. It was only 10% of the goal. Later, the authorities explained that it was a "vision" rather than a "goal."
Regardless of the "vision" or the "target", it is an indisputable fact that private car owners generally treat electric vehicles indifferently.
Hong Wenzheng, the founding chairman of the Hong Kong Emerging Technology Education Association, pointed out that the shortage of charging devices is a key factor for car owners' reluctance to switch cars.
Li Yaopei, president of the Hong Kong Automobile Association, said in an interview with "Hong Kong 01" recently that his car has been in use for nearly 18 years, so he hopes to replace the electric vehicle with a new electric vehicle through the "one for one" program.
However, there are no charging facilities for the monthly rental parking spaces in the parking lots of their housing estates. Only other parking lots adjacent to shopping malls have hourly charging spaces with specific electric vehicle brands. "If you buy (electric vehicles), you don’t have to charge, and there is no reason to park the government exclusively. Charging in the parking lot and taking the subway to rework!"
Hong Wenzheng switched to an electric car three years ago, and also encountered a lot of troubles because of insufficient charging stations: "After I switched to an electric car, I often couldn't plan (plan) my own itinerary, and I would "hang out my heart" every day. There is no charging station on the road, I would rather take public transportation...because if I drive halfway and run out of electricity, I really can only call a tow truck!"
How small is the number of charging stations for electric vehicles in Hong Kong?
According to the Transport Department, there are currently only 3,351 public charging stations in Hong Kong for car owners (Figure 2).
The situation of Link and the Housing Authority, which manages multiple car parks, is not the same: Link manages 14 car parks with approximately 56,000 parking spaces, and only provides 86 charging parking spaces, with a ratio of 0.15%; as of the end of December last year, the Housing Authority A total of 1,180 electric vehicle charging spaces will be provided in 50 parking lots, accounting for 3.7% of the parking spaces.
There are 18,000 electric vehicles in Hong Kong, with only about 4,500 charging stations, and nearly 40% of public charging stations are "standard charging stations" that use 13 amperes of electricity.
Hong Wenzheng described this as "stealing the chicken fork potential": "This type of household charging head takes two days to fill the entire car, and our car owners will not use it!" In contrast, the medium-speed charging station is fully charged in about four hours, which is fast It only takes an hour, but the number is still difficult to meet 18,000 cars, and car owners have to line up in the parking lot to charge.
"I have seen a row of parking lots in Festival Walk for two hours. It's just a line. The time for you to charge and drive away the vehicle has not been counted." He exclaimed, "If you work in a fixed time (fixed time) job, it's hard to find Time to recharge."
What should the ideal charging picture look like?
Hong Wenzheng believes that at least every parking space should be able to charge: "We charge the car for two or three hours "parking low", without full charge, and then drive to another place to recharge, and so on. Just like a mobile phone, You don’t need to be fully charged, you can use it when you go out of the street. You can use a power bank if you don’t have enough battery power, but you can’t use a car. So you need to be able to "fork to power" around." By the end of last year, Shenzhen had a total of 83,000. There are three charging stations, of which 30,000 are fast charging stations, and the registered new energy vehicles are 362,800 (data at the end of 2019).
The "Roadmap" proposes that it is expected that 150,000 charging infrastructures will be installed in private residential and commercial buildings in 2025, and public charging stations will be increased to more than 5,000.
Although it has set ambitious goals, the government has mainly followed the old measures and policies of "one place chicken feathers".
In the past ten years, the government has taken the posture of "positive non-intervention" and handed over the work of laying charging stations to the industry and car owners.
In 2019, the government launched the 2 billion "Easy Charging Fund for EV Housing Estates" to subsidize private parking lots to install electric vehicle infrastructure. So far, 234 applications have been received, covering 60,000 parking spaces.
However, the government only subsidizes the installation of "charging infrastructure" in parking spaces, and car owners must install "chargers" themselves to charge their vehicles.
In this case, the plan does not cover daily and hourly rental parking spaces, that is, the housing estate parking lot cannot benefit the surrounding car owners, forming a radiation effect.
The government's willingness to provide subsidies is a good thing, but why does it require "half a bucket of water" to do things, and then set up a "small" gate?
At the same time, the subsidy scheme ignores the reality of Hong Kong’s parking spaces, which are “increase of land”.
"It's not expensive to install a charger. It only costs tens of thousands of yuan. If I have a parking space, I will install it." Hong Wenzheng said, "The problem is that many people park their cars in the parking lot of The Link or large housing estates. The location is rented, not fixed. It costs 1 to 4 million yuan to buy a place. Not everyone can afford it. There are not many people living in houses (single-family houses) in Hong Kong."
Of course, the government also has new ideas, including the idea of transforming gas stations/gas stations into charging stations, considering installing medium-speed chargers in public housing estate parking lots, and studying that new private building parking spaces must be equipped with charging infrastructure and installing public parking spaces. Electric parking spaces and charging stations, etc., are all "under active research" and there is no specific time for landing—that is, the "Roadmap" still "talks more than does" in the planning of charging facilities.
The "Roadmap" is still "talking more than doing" in the planning of charging facilities.
(Profile picture)
Planning for short-sighted
tax concessions
In the early years, the government exempted the first registration tax for electric private cars and used strong financial incentives to encourage the public to purchase private cars.
But by 2017, the Financial Secretary Chen Maobo announced in the "Budget" that the first registration tax for electric vehicles will be abolished, and the tax will be reduced to a maximum of 97,500 yuan. The reason is that "taking into account the overall increase in private cars in the past few years." "Electric private cars are gradually being accepted by motorists."
The purpose of the government's reduction of tax concessions is to encourage everyone to take public transportation, but is it really effective?
In 2018, the number of new private car registrations remained at the level of the previous year, but the number of electric car registrations increased by only 414, an increase of only 4% over the previous year, and the increase in 2017 was as high as 56%.
Due to the high price of electric vehicles and the lack of tax concessions, the prices of some electric vehicles have nearly doubled, and consumers' incentives to purchase are naturally greatly reduced.
At the same time, the number of gasoline vehicles has increased sharply, and the number of registrations increased by 16,500 over the previous year.
The government soon realized that high taxes have seriously affected the promotion efficiency of electric vehicles. Therefore, in addition to retaining the tax exemption cap of 97,500 yuan in the 2018 Budget, it introduced a "one-for-one" plan for electric vehicles-that is, car owners. Destroying old cars and replacing them with electric cars can get a tax relief of up to 250,000 yuan.
However, the plan also marked the "off the ground" gate: it must be an old car more than six years old, and the same owner must register for three years and pay a license fee for 20 months.
Let me ask, car owners who have used their vehicles for more than six years are obviously financially limited and without strong financial incentives, how can they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace electric vehicles?
Since the government intends to increase the proportion of electric vehicles, why is it unwilling to relax the threshold and provide greater financial incentives?
In contrast, the "economic incentives" for diesel vehicles, which pollute the most, are slightly better than electric vehicles.
Since 2011, the number and proportion of diesel private car registrations have generally been higher than that of electric vehicles. It was not until 2019 that the proportion of electric private car registrations was slightly higher than that of diesel vehicles. The current difference between the two is about 6,000 (Figure four).
"Four or five years ago, my friends recommended diesel cars to me and said they were'good for use'!" Hong Wenzheng recalled, "mainly because of its cheapness. Diesel is relatively cheap in Hong Kong and in the world. The oil in that car is relatively cheap. The cost is about half that of a gasoline car."
From an economic point of view, the current license registration fee for diesel vehicles is only 1,000 to 2,000 yuan higher than gasoline vehicles, but the daily gas fee is relatively cheap, and it is not like electric vehicles that have to worry about nowhere to recharge. Naturally, they have to drive on a daily basis. The owner of the car is attractive.
However, from the perspective of environmental protection, among the three types of vehicle power currently available, diesel has the greatest impact on the environment. Even if the government issues policies requiring newly registered private cars to comply with the California emission standard LEV III, diesel vehicles still emit nitrogen oxides. , Which seriously affects roadside air quality.
Hong Wenzheng pointed out that while the government is popularizing electric vehicles, it should also "set a timetable to push out diesel vehicles."
However, in the past, the government did not increase the punitive cost of diesel vehicle pollution emissions, and the latest "Road Map" did not specifically address diesel private cars, but classified them as one with gasoline vehicles, and stopped registration before 2035.
The government regulates the market and emphasizes the simultaneous use of "carrots and sticks". It not only provides incentives for urban transformation and upgrading, but also speeds up the elimination of pollution sources by increasing pollution costs.
For example, the governments of Shenzhen, Norway, and Tokyo completely exempt taxes and fees for purchasing electric vehicles, while the governments of Shenzhen and Tokyo provide subsidies of about 20,000 Hong Kong dollars to encourage car owners to switch to or purchase new electric vehicles, and strive to create sufficient financial incentives.
Norway has released concessions on road traffic. Since 2005, electric vehicle drivers have been allowed to use the bus lanes. At the same time, it has also allowed electric vehicles to park for free in municipal parking lots, set private parking fees, and reduced or directly exempted roads and car ferries. Cross-sea charges.
In addition to "carrots", "sticks" are also indispensable.
Singapore launched the "Vehicle Emissions Plan" as early as 2013, imposing a tax of up to 20,000 Singapore dollars (approximately HK$116,000) on high-emission vehicles, and this year it has increased to 25,000 Singapore dollars (approximately HK$144,000). Diesel vehicles (including commercial vehicles) will be completely phased out by 2025, and gasoline vehicles will be completely phased out by 2040.
On the other hand, in Hong Kong, the government’s policy thinking is conservative and simple. It only takes a short-sighted approach to deal with the immediate problems, and has never considered the city’s green transformation and environmental protection goals in the long term.
From a "carrot" point of view, the government has made continuous changes to tax incentives. It only knows counting and does not know how to plan. It cannot create sufficient economic incentives and hinders the promotion of electric private cars. This is a conservative thinking. From a "big stick" point of view, diesel cars are environmentally friendly. The pollution is greater, but the operating cost is relatively cheap. The "Road Map" confuses it with gasoline vehicles, and does not consider levying emissions taxes to promote the replacement of highly polluting vehicles. This is a simple thinking.
Failure to lead by example, the
government is unwilling to test commercial electric vehicles first, the penetration rate is extremely low
In other words, the main users of diesel vehicles are not private cars, but commercial vehicles such as public transportation and other commercial vehicles that most Hong Kong citizens take on a daily basis, such as minibuses, franchised buses, or trucks that shuttle between mainland and Hong Kong every day.
Since the government hopes to suppress the growth of private cars through policies and encourage citizens to take public transportation, public transportation should also be environmentally friendly and green.
In terms of environmental protection benefits, the use of new energy for commercial vehicles is more significant for improving the urban environment.
The environmental protection group "Action for Healthy Air" pointed out that although commercial vehicles account for about 20% of the total number of vehicles, they are the main source of air pollutants on the roadside, and their respirable suspended particles and nitrogen oxides account for all vehicle emissions in Hong Kong. More than 90%.
In terms of the difficulty of promoting electric vehicles, commercial vehicles are easier than private vehicles.
Because the driving time, route, and parking lot of commercial vehicles such as buses and trucks are relatively fixed, it is easy to realize the large-scale construction of infrastructure such as charging stations, and the driving of vehicles is not restricted by the distribution of charging stations.
Let’s take a look at the "stones of other mountains." Shenzhen, where the popularity of new energy vehicles is extremely high, starts with commercial vehicles such as public transportation.
First of all, the local government has solved the problem of vehicle purchase costs. The price of electric buses is much higher than that of diesel buses. The price of a 12-meter electric bus is 1.7 million yuan, while the diesel version only costs 700,000 yuan.
In order to reduce the burden on operators, in the initial stage of the implementation of electric buses, the government provided a maximum of RMB 400,000 in operating subsidies for each bus.
At the same time, the method of "hybrid leasing" and "complete vehicle purchase, service outsourcing" is also used to dilute the cost of car replacement.
Taking "hybrid leasing" as an example, a vehicle manufacturer sells electric buses and charging facilities to a third-party financial institution, and the latter leases the equipment to the bus company for a period of eight years.
After the lease term expires, the relevant vehicles and facilities will be transferred to the bus company.
On the other hand, Hong Kong's fiscal and policy incentives can be said to be "different" from Shenzhen.
Under the current policy, the main financial incentives introduced by the Hong Kong government are tax exemptions and the "New Energy Transport Fund" (formerly the "Green Transport Fund" established in 2011). The fund injected a total of 1.1 billion yuan and only approved 196 pilot projects. .
In this "Road Map", in addition to a special test plan for single-deck buses and public light buses, other models still follow the "fund test" model.
In 2020, global economic activities will be greatly reduced by the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic. However, Hong Kong's air pollutants ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels remained high last year.
(Data Picture/Photo by Yu Junliang)
"Healthy Air Action" earlier pointed out that the fund is "not conducive to large-scale trials": it only covers hardware capital costs, excluding additional operating costs and other recurrent expenses. Most applicants can only buy one or two electric vehicles for testing, which does not meet the cost. benefit.
The fund has been established for a full ten years, but it has not been able to find an electric commercial vehicle suitable for promotion, which is enough to show the failure of this model.
The government does not go to introspection and adjustments. It just uses the excuses of the many mountain roads in Hong Kong, the number of trains, the large number of passengers, and the need to provide air-conditioning in the hot summer, to criticize the lack of mature technology and insufficient endurance of electric buses, which has caused the promotion of electric vehicles to stay in the "experimental" stage. , Can be described as "lazy government" extremely.
This is not the first time that the government has used the immature electric vehicle technology as a "shield". In May last year, the then Legislative Council Member Guo Jiaqi asked why the government did not electrify the government fleet.
The government takes the lead in implementing new energy travel, and there are long precedents in various regions.
Last year, the Shenzhen Municipal Government required the government and public institutions to replace old vehicles with 95% electric vehicles.
US President Biden also recently announced that all 650,000 vehicles used by the US federal government will be replaced with US-made electric vehicles.
As of the end of March 2020, the Hong Kong government fleet has a total of 6,404 vehicles, of which 224 are electric vehicles, accounting for 3.4%.
The Secretary for the Environment, Huang Jinxing, explained in a written reply that whether the department can use electric vehicles mainly depends on the technological development of electric vehicles, including vehicle performance, battery durability, and the longest journey when fully charged, whether it can meet the daily operational needs of the department.
Is it the "underdeveloped battery technology" or the shortage of charging stations that leads to poor battery life and "cannot meet the needs of daily operations"?
With an area of 2,050 square kilometers in Shenzhen, the government and public organizations can replace electric vehicles on a large scale. In Hong Kong, which is 1,106 square kilometers, the government also blames the lack of advanced technology in electric vehicles.
The excuse that "batteries are not durable" is really self-defeating.
The same problem also arises in the electrification of public transportation. Since bus charging stations have not formed a network, the operating efficiency of electric buses is low, and operators are unwilling to transform. It is no wonder that the "New Energy Fund" has repeatedly failed trials.
However, the problem of charging stations is not unsolvable. It only involves land issues and must be promoted by the government.
The Shenzhen government has collaborated with bus companies and charging infrastructure suppliers to increase a large number of bus parking lots and charging facilities since 2016, and the ratio of chargers to buses has reached 1:3.
At the same time, charging equipment is open to private cars, increasing the capital income of charging infrastructure, and also forming a radiation effect.
According to a survey conducted by the World Resources Institute, Shenzhen electric buses can travel 250 kilometers after five hours of charging; the buses are fully charged at night and then recharged during non-travel peak hours during the day to maintain full-day operation.
The survey concluded: "By optimizing the operation and charging mode of electric buses, Shenzhen has almost completely eliminated additional costs and raised the operating efficiency of electric vehicles to the level of diesel vehicles."
As bus charging stations have not formed a network, the operation efficiency of electric buses is low, and operators are unwilling to transform.
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The Legislative Council Panel on Environmental Affairs discussed a solution to the bottleneck of local bus endurance as early as 2019: "Referring to Shenzhen’s experience, the key to successfully overcoming the limited endurance is to deploy 1.2 times or more battery-electric buses based on the number of diesel buses, and Replenish electricity at public transport interchanges or bus terminals during non-peak hours."
The problem has long been clarified, and the solution is very clear. However, the Hong Kong government just has no courage to provide sufficient subsidies to operators to cover 1.2 times the purchase cost and labor cost of electric buses, and it is not determined to install additional charging facilities at bus stops in Hong Kong.
This time the "Roadmap" repeatedly mentions the importance of laying a "fast charging network", but the substantive measures are only "requiring public transport interchanges in new development areas to provide designated charging places for public transport", and non-new areas still need to "pass the test" Plan” to assess the feasibility, and intends to “build and operate a fast charging facility in a business model”.
After all, the government still intends to rely on the market to solve the problem of charging stations and evade the responsibility of "opening up wasteland."
Shenzhen started to promote new energy buses in 2015, and by 2018, 16,000 buses will be fully electric.
In the same period, Shenzhen also provided high financial incentives and adequate charging facilities for taxis, making the operating cost of electric taxis far lower than fuel taxis. The industry is naturally willing to transform. At present, the 22,000 taxis in Shenzhen are all driven by electricity.
Look at Hong Kong, which started to promote electric vehicles in 2011. At present, there are only 36 electric franchised buses, accounting for 0.6% of all 6,000 franchised buses; there are only three electric taxis, accounting for 0.017% of 18,000 taxis. It's embarrassing.
Xiong Yongda, a senior member of the Hong Kong Institute of Transportation Research, has studied the electrification of public buses for many years.
In an interview with the media, he pointed out that electric vehicles have become a general trend. "The question is whether the government is willing to do more to make electric vehicles popular earlier, instead of waiting for the market to do it and taking it as its own credit."
The above was published in the 257th issue of "Hong Kong 01" Weekly (March 22, 2021) "The 10-year goal of electric vehicles reached only 10%, exposing the government's three major governance malpractices". If you want to read the full text, please
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