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Jake Van Der Kamp

Former Porsche chief designer Pinky Lai Ping is involved in a project to build a high-performance luxury vehicle in China he says will leave coveted European marques such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti in the dust.
... It would be an electric powered vehicle unlike any on the market, he said, adding he expected it to be unveiled in 12 months. He said the car would come with "an extremely high price tag."
SCMP, August 23
The wealthier residential districts of this town are pretty good places to find out what the leading trends are in the car market and there is a very clear leader at the moment.
It is the electric-powered Tesla Model S. It's a sexy looking beast and you will see one on the road almost anywhere you turn these days.
I asked Richard Lancaster of CLP Holdings about this phenomenon a few weeks ago. There is no-one like the chief executive of a power utility to take an interest in new trends in electricity demand and he was very upbeat about this one.
Hong Kong is an ideal place for electric vehicles, he pointed out, as driving distances are all short, which makes the present battery limits of electric vehicles no problem for drivers here. There is steady engineering improvement in battery capacity anyway.
The real problem is getting owners committees of residential blocks to approve installation of charging facilities in their carparks. Hopefully, the greater the demand from owners, the easier this will become.
The only other potential problem with big demand is an overly heavy load on substations if owners all plug in for a recharge at the same time every day on coming home from work. They may have to be told that their cars will be recharged between 7.00pm and 7.00am but they cannot pick exactly when.
The utilities certainly have enough generating capacity. Going by CLP's estimates, electricity demand would rise by only two per cent if 25 per cent of the cars on our roads were electric powered. It is air conditioning that really sucks up electricity. Tesla owners are happily surprised by how much their running costs go down with the transition from petrol to electricity.
But why should it be Tesla that walks away with this one? Despite having a winner the company continues to be a big money loser with a chief who has his eye on space rather than road travel these days, and who only ever got the Model S going with a big stimulus grant from the US government.
Surely one of the big American or European car companies could have done it by now. Yet it is Tesla I see on the roads and the last big story anything like it is that tired old halfway step, the Toyota Prius.
There is still enormous room here for someone to come into this market with a mass market electric car and it has to be one of the big opportunities for the mainland's car companies, which have all been trying without success for a breakthrough model that will establish them on the world stage.
China's carmakers have the necessary manufacturing, engineering and research facilities they need for an electric-powered breakthrough and they have the perfect testing ground on their doorstep in Hong Kong.
A word from Beijing to our own government and incentives for installing charging facilities in residential blocks can start things rolling. Our government can make any residential block drill pointless holes in its slopes at huge expense. This is an easy one in contrast. We could be looking at a worldwide win here.
Instead what we have is a retired styling designer for some Porsche models talking of Italian style cars in tones that would suit a Berlusconi bunga-bunga party and telling you his electric car will be a great way of advertising that you have much more money than the people who look at you.
Has Mr Lai not seen what is happening on the mainland's financial markets? The Ferrari/Lamborghini/Bugatti demand has just been crunched, Pinky. Think again.
I do hope indeed that the mainland's car companies have their eyes on electric cars and I hope even more that they have a better place to look for design advice.


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Tesla

Why let Tesla take it all? Hong Kong a perfect testing ground for China-developed electric car

The Tesla Model S is the favoured electric car for wealthier Hong Kong residents. Photo: Bloomberg

Business

China Business

Jake's View

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Jake's View | Why let Tesla take it all? Hong Kong a perfect testing ground for China-developed electric car

Jake's View | Why let Tesla take it all? Hong Kong a perfect testing ground for China-developed electric car