Hong Kong’s electrified car owners still stuck in the slow lane
Despite the whirr surrounding the Formula E race in the city, ordinary drivers are being held back by a lack of charging stations
Raymond Cheng UPDATED : Friday, seven Oct 2016, Ten:08AM
The Formula E race in Central this weekend is very first and foremost a world-class sporting event, but for Hong Kong residents it will bring something identically unprecedented and precious – no roadside pollution, at least along Lung Wo Road, for a duo of days.
Tho’ the thunder will be silent, the two-time champ Renault team will defend its Formula E title by the IFC and giant ferris wheel on the harbourfront, against teams from Audi, Jaguar, DS Cherry and Venturi, which was co-founded by actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
For one weekend in Central, Hong Kong will have arrived at a fresh era of electrical vehicles, and our well known air quality will be temporarily cleaner. And in theory, if petrol cars are step by step substituted by electrified cars, then Hong Kong will love cleaner air.
«Motor vehicles are the major emission source of air pollution in Hong Kong,» Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing said in a written response to the Post. «It is challenging to improve roadside air quality in a city because vehicle exhausts are trapped by buildings flanking both sides of the road.
«The high development density in Hong Kong aggravates the challenge. Electrical vehicles have no tailpipe emissions and are efficient in converting energy from the grid to power at the wheels. Substituting conventional vehicles with electrical vehicles can help improve roadside air quality.»
But the reality is not that ordinary, as there are issues that cause daily headaches for many electrified car drivers.
A random look at the car park at Pacific Place in Admiralty during a weekday lunchtime shows the shortage of charging stations. All four standard charging docks were occupied, as were the four Tesla swift charging stations, and there was a queue of Teslas waiting.
What is worse, many private residential car parks do not permit charging stations. As the percentage of electrified cars is puny, owners` associations, made up mostly of non-electric car owners, are reluctant to do the extra work involved, and certainly not to shoulder the extra costs.
The government was well aware of this and Wong said «potential buyers should consider charging arrangements before buying electrical vehicles».
But he added that the government had been taking measures to alleviate the problem. Since April 2011, developers who put the necessary electrical vehicle charging infrastructure in the car parks of fresh buildings, including provision of sufficient power supply and wiring to facilitate future installation of chargers, would be granted concessions on gross floor area.
And in June 2011, planning guidelines for fresh buildings were amended to «recommend» thirty per cent of private car parking spaces be installed with chargers.
Wong said the government wished to encourage more developers and property management companies to provide charging services. «The government has been working with the private sector, including the power companies, in expanding the electrified vehicle charging infrastructure in Hong Kong.»
But is what is being done enough?
«I think the government should make it mandatory for residential car parks to have charging stations,» said Professor Chau Kwok-tong, an accomplished in electrical vehicles at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Hong Kong.
«It is lighter for fresh buildings, however existing buildings with suitable electro-stimulation infrastructure should be permitted to install charging facilities. We can introduce a quota system, say a car park should be required to have five per cent of parking spaces with charging facilities, perhaps raising to ten per cent in three to five years,» Chau said.
«The availability of charging facilities at home is very significant to attract people to choose electrified cars. If the other resident landlords are not blessed to pay the extra costs, the estate management company can charge electrified car owners a rent or fee to recoup the extra expenses.»
Dr Suspended Wing-tat, an associate professor at Polytechnic University who trains transport infrastructure design and development, also felt the government needed to do more to meet the growing request for electrified cars.
«At some older buildings, electro-therapy supply may not be enough to support chargers, but setting up fresh facilities may be expensive. Buildings laws may need to be switched to meet the growing request for electrified cars.»
He said the appetite for electrical cars would further increase as the government would soon tighten the emission standards of vehicles. «Many drivers will need to substitute their cars. Electrical cars don`t have emissions, so they are attractive in this aspect.»
However, Gordon Lam, chairman of the Electrified Vehicle Club Hong Kong, was not optimistic that the government would step in to facilitate.
«I am acutely aware of the problem. Among our membership of about one hundred who drive electrical cars, ninety per cent of them do not have a charging station at home.
«Ideally the government should make it mandatory for freshly built car parks to have a certain quota of spaces with charging facilities, but I think in reality this is difficult to implement, as it will involve the government confronting developers who do not want to set up the charging facilities.»
But he noted that some developers were already active in preparing the charging infrastructure, such as Hopewell, Sino Land, Wheelock, and Sun Dangled Kai Properties, because it «may help to make their flats more attractive».
There were now about 1,400 public chargers in Hong Kong, but Lam said there were problems at these stations too. «Charging spaces are often occupied by petrol cars. There is no penalty for these unethical drivers, and often the guards simply say they can`t do anything about it.»
The most significant benefit of electrical cars is less pollution. But how serious is the pollution problem in Hong Kong? The environment bureau said the transport sector as a entire contributed about fourteen per cent of greenhouses gases in 2013, while motor vehicles contributed about fourteen per cent of local respirable suspended particulates and twenty per cent of volatile organic compounds in 2014.
Draped of Polytechnic University said a major pollution problem was the so-called canyon effect.
«Tall buildings along the roads in Hong Kong act like a tunnel and prevent the harass gas from petrol vehicles from dispersing. The problem is particularly bad in Causeway Bay, Central and Mong Kok.»
There are already several government measures to encourage electrified cars. Very first registration tax is waived until March 2017, while companies that buy environmentally friendly vehicles are permitted one hundred per cent profit tax deduction for capital expenditure in the very first year of procurement.
By August 2016, there were 6,167 electrical vehicles in Hong Kong, with Five,957 of them private cars. The figures had grown sharply from just five hundred ninety two in 2013.
Dr Sammy Lee, a medical doctor, drives one of them – a blue Tesla Model S, the best-selling model of any brand in Hong Kong last year with Two,221 units. His practice shows why so many people are displaying an interest.
«As a driver, choosing an electrical car is all I can do to improve air quality in the city,» said Lee, who spent about HK$50,000 to install a charging station.
«The spectacle is fine. Because there is no engine, it is truly quiet, and there is much less need for maintenance. The ‘clever` implements are also hugely appealing. My car is always connected to the internet via 3G, so it records every road and every turn it travels.»
Another perhaps unexpected benefit comes from the lack of a petrol engine.
Kevin Tsui, who drives a BMW i Three, said: «In the summer, I can keep the air conditioning running to keep myself cool even if I have parked my car, because the law to penalize idling engines has exempted electrical vehicles.»
The popularity of electrical cars is being accelerated by fresh models. Tesla has just launched Model X in Hong Kong, an SUV with «falcon» doors and an epic acceleration from zero to 100km/h in just Three.1 seconds. The fresh BMW i3 has upgraded to a fresh battery with fifty per cent more capacity, enlargening its range to 200km.
In order to reduce overall pollution, Joseph Lau, managing director of BMW Concessionaires (HK), said production of electrical vehicles should not be just about power generation.
«For the electrical vehicle industry to improve, it will depend on whether the industry can truly commit to a wholesome sustainability concept. For example, BMW i3 and i8 are produced with renewable wind energy in Germany,» Lau said.
«The future is bright for electrified vehicles. With the progress in technology, there will be more advanced products and with a larger range and clever features.»
Chau of the University of Hong Kong said a major direction of development was wireless charging, both static and in mobility.
«Instead of linking the wire to the car, the charging can be done wirelessly from a facility built underneath the car, a bit like smartphones charging wirelessly. This solves the risk that wires can carry a potential safety hazard. There are already prototypes of these.
«For the long term, the need to recharge during a long road journey is significant. There is research about building wireless recharging facilities underneath the slow lane, so electrical cars running on batteries can budge to the slow lane and embark charging away.»
But that is more for tomorrow`s world and will not be happening in Lung Wo Road this weekend.