Hi-tech Shenzhen charges ahead in China with all-electric taxi fleet
- City gives up on petrol to be the biggest in the country to have almost all of its cabs powered by electricity.
One of China’s major cities has reached an environmental milestone: an almost entirely electric-powered taxi fleet.
The hi-tech hub of Shenzhen in southern China announced at the start of this year that 99 per cent of the 21,689 taxis operating in the city were electric.
Last year, it still had 7,500 petrol-powered taxis on the roads. A few can still be found, but electric ones far outnumber them.
The metropolis of 12.5 million is the second – and biggest – to achieve this feat in China. Taiyuan, in the country’s north with a population of 4.3 million, has had only electric taxis since 2016.
Shenzhen “has taken the lead among major Chinese cities”, said Cui Dongshu, the secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association.
Shenzhen’s bus fleet has been all-electric since 2017. The Shenzhen Municipality Transport Committee said the city was one of 13 pilot centres promoting alternative-energy public transport to cut smog and develop the alternative energy industry.