Advertisement
As Formula E races through Hong Kong, a tax tweak has hit electric car sales hard
The race cars are back in town, but motorists’ zeal for greener cars appears to have been drained by a massive duty increase
3-MIN READ3-MIN
The Hong Kong government’s decision to slash a tax break on electric cars coincided with a precipitous decline in sales of the greener vehicles, government data has revealed.
On the weekend that the city hosts motor sport’s premier electric car event, the buzz appears not to have captured the imagination of consumers; sales of battery-run cars have dropped by 97.1 per cent since the Formula E cars rolled into town a year ago.
Since 1994, the government had waived the registration tax on electric cars. But in the February budget it drastically reduced that to a subsidy capped at HK$97,500. That caused prices of cars such as Teslas to jump by up to 80 per cent.
Advertisement
Since Hong Kong sidelined electric cars, other governments have moved in the opposite direction to embrace the vehicles, and phase out sales of petrol and diesel cars. Britain and France set a deadline of 2040 for an end to sales of cars run on fossil fuels. China announced a similar intention without setting a deadline.
Tesla models accounted for 96 per cent of the 5,741 electric cars sold in Hong Kong from May 2016, when the government started disclosing the figures in detail, to October this year.
Advertisement
In three of the seven months since the tax break was pulled, no one registered a new Tesla with the government. Overall, only 49 electric private cars were sold between April and October, a 97.1 per cent fall from 1,706 in the same period last year.
Advertisement
Select Voice
Select Speed
1.00x