Edwin Lau

Opinion | Why Hong Kong’s electric vehicle plan isn’t enough to hit carbon neutrality goals

The scope of the government’s plan to promote electric vehicles is too narrow and focuses on private vehicles while leaving out buses and trucks

It is deeply disappointing that the Environment Bureau is still unable to recommend a policy direction for greening commercial vehicles after numrous trials

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A driver charges an electric bus after Citybus and First Bus jointly launched the second batch of electric single deckers in Chai Wan on September 7, 2016.Hong Kong has not adopted an aggressive strategy for greening public transport and commercial vehicles. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Edwin Lau

Published: 8:00pm, 3 Apr 2021Updated: 8:00pm, 3 Apr 2021

If Hong Kong is to meet its carbon neutrality goal by 2050 and improve roadside air quality, the new road map on the popularisation of electric vehicles recently unveiled by the Environment Bureau seems unlikely to help.

The scope of the plan is narrow, covering private cars but leaving out commercial vehicles, such as buses and trucks. These are set to undergo more trials for another four years or so before any policy measures will be proposed.

Yet, since 2011, the government’s Pilot Green Transport Fund has subsidised the transport trade and non-profit organisations in testing green transport technologies that meet goals similar to the road map. Last year, the government injected another HK$800 million (US$103 million) into the fund and renamed it the New Energy Transport Fund.

The fund has spent HK$166 million on 210 trials of green technologies in the last 10 years, covering almost all types of transport including buses, light buses, light and medium goods vehicles and taxis. However, the Environment Bureau is still unable to recommend even a policy direction for greening commercial vehicles based on all those tests. This is deeply disappointing and might warrant an investigation by the Audit Commission as to what has gone wrong.

Technologies for low- or zero-emission transport for private cars and commercial vehicles have advanced rapidly in the last decade or so, from battery storage capacity to instant electrical power generated by fuel cells to hydrogen-fuelled combustion engines. Last October, the first 10 fully electric double-decker buses started operating in Singapore, which has hot and humid weather similar to Hong Kong. Singapore also plans to build 28,000 charging points by 2030 for the transition to electric vehicles.

A woman walks across a bridge above vehicles travelling along the Pan Island Expressway highway during peak hours in Singapore on March 2. The government pledged last month to spend S$30 million (US$22 million) over five years for electric vehicle-related initiatives. Photo: Bloomberg

London had 68 battery-powered electric double-decker buses in 2019, the largest zero-emission double-decker bus fleet in Europe. Since then, the number has grown to 316. In addition, the world’s first fleet of hydrogen fuel cell double-decker buses started operating on the streets of Aberdeen in Scotland this January and will be expanded to other major cities.