Who Killed The Electric Car?

Imagine a hot summer day. You’re crossing the street, stuck in the median because of unsynchronized lights. Countless cars are whizzing by, emitting hot, black, dirty smoke into your face. You can’t help coughing, and even breathing gets difficult. Sound familiar? It should be: Hongkongers are all-too-frequent victims of roadside pollution.

Given that car owners are unlikely to suddenly abandon their vehicles and start riding the MTR, it seems to be an unsolvable problem—but there are glimmers of hope, thanks to advances in green-car technology. In recent years, electric cars have been hailed as vehicles of the future; they are emission-free and energy-efficient. Hong Kong even has its own homegrown brand of electric vehicles (EVs), a line called myCar. But the abysmal figures speak for themselves; there are very few EVs in the city. So why aren’t there more electric cars? What has hampered the adoption of these seemingly perfect vehicles in Hong Kong?

Too many things to count. First, there’s an ongoing debate about the true benefits of EVs. The obvious perk is that they do not emit any greenhouse gases. Regular diesel cars spit out hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Some naysayers argue, however, that after a widespread switchover to EVs the sources of these pollutants will become power plants, which produce the electricity needed to charge the cars. But others dispute that claim.

“There won’t be waste gases on the roads,” responds Eric Cheng, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, who is also one of the brains behind myCar. “The filters of diesel cars are not that good because of their small sizes. But those of power plants could perform three to four times better than the filters of vehicles, thus trapping a lot more pollutants.”

Electric cars are, naturally, far more energy-efficient than diesel cars, meaning they don’t require much input to get a lot of output. “For motors of EVs, energy efficiency can reach 85 to 90 percent. But for motors of diesel vehicles, efficiency rates only hover around 15 to 20 percent,” Cheng says. According to Cheng, fuel motors only generate energy after a process that involves combustion and burning, which itself requires a lot of energy to initiate. Electric motors, on the other hand, create a magnetic field to power a car, saving energy.

Drivers can also save on fuel. Cheng estimates that the cost of running a diesel car is around $1 to $2 per kilometer, while electric vehicle drivers only need to spend $0.15 to $0.20 per kilometer on electricity.

There are other pros, too. Contrary to common misconceptions, EVs can perform much better than their fuel-powered counterparts. Cheng says EVs generate a larger maximum torque (a physicist’s word for force), making engines much more powerful. Diesel engines can take a while to start up; electric motors react instantly. Fuel engines may stall from time to time because the process of combustion doesn’t start. If you drive an electric vehicle, you won’t have that problem.