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EV charging: Hong Kong car distributor Inchcape launches public station amid sales surge

  • ‘A lack of charging facilities is one of the pain points for EV car owners in the city,’ Inchcape Greater China MD says

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Lexus and Toyota models fill their batteries at Inchcape’s public charging station at Landmark East in Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, on June 12, 2024. Photo: Handout
Inchcape, the distributor in Hong Kong for carmakers including SAIC Maxus, Toyota, Lexus, Land Rover and Jaguar, has plugged in its first public charging station in the city, as electric vehicle (EV) sales surge amid a relative lack of public charging infrastructure.
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The city needs more charging stations to support the use of EVs as the government pushes to decarbonise transport, Ted Lau, managing director of Inchcape Greater China, said at a launch event on Wednesday.

“A lack of charging facilities is one of the pain points of EV car owners in the city,” he said. “We hope to provide this as a solution to customers’ charging needs when they buy our EV brands” and to signify “our company’s commitment to sustainability”.

Hong Kong had 91,633 registered plug-in EVs as of April, a 68 per cent increase from a year ago, according to data from the Transport Department. EVs account for 14 per cent of the city’s private cars. However, there were only 8,056 EV chargers for public use, including 4,662 medium-speed chargers and 1,397 quick chargers, as of the end of March.
The government outlined plans three years ago to encourage uptake of EVs, with a target to stop registering new petrol and petrol-electric hybrid vehicles by 2035.
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Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu in his policy address last October said the government wants to expand the use of EVs in the city. Towards that end, the government plans to increase the number of public and private parking spaces with charging equipment to about 200,000 by mid 2027.
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