Letters | Hong Kong’s electric car dream could do with a spark from Shenzhen
- Readers urge Hong Kong to quicken its transition to electric cars, discuss the importance of leisure in capitalism, and celebrate the Octopus card
Transport remains Hong Kong’s second biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions when just across the border, Shenzhen is the world’s leading electric vehicle (EV) city.
Hong Kong, as a city lacking across the board in EV charging stations, battery recycling stations and the technology to develop new energy vehicles (NEVs), should be taking a leaf from its neighbour.
Shenzhen could help Hong Kong’s transition towards NEVs by sharing its experience from vehicle introduction to promotion of use. And Hong Kong could attract EV makers such as Shenzhen-based BYD and Guangzhou-headquartered GAC Group to locate operations in the city, such as through business-friendly policies or capital investment.
While Hong Kong dithers, electric carmakers are racing ahead to make the business even more sustainable by improving the recycling and reusing of car batteries. For example, nearly four years ago, Shenzhen-based GEM Co, China’s biggest battery recycler, already agreed to collaborate with a unit of major carmaker BAIC Group to set up a closed-loop battery recycling system in the northern Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.