Hong Kong needs to plan for green future and help city’s mechanics learn how to repair electric vehicles, says biggest distributor
- Managing director of Inchcape Greater China says government should not only focus on increasing charging facilities for electric vehicles
- Ted Lau says supporting measures also needed as he issues warning about lack of skilled technicians to repair them
With Hong Kong moving towards full adoption of more environmentally friendly transport by 2035, the city’s biggest motor vehicle distributor has issued a warning about the lack of skilled technicians to repair the growing number of electric cars.
In an interview with the Post, Ted Lau, managing director of Inchcape Greater China, said the government should not only focus on increasing charging facilities for e-cars, but also roll out other supporting measures, such as helping the city’s existing 8,000 mechanics transit to EVs.
“The government needs to set up a regulatory regime to train technicians for the repair and maintenance of EVs,” he said. “There should be a registration system to ensure that EV maintenance workers are all qualified to fix e-cars.”
He made the call as the government recently announced its target to phase out new purchases of petrol-powered private cars by 2035.
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Inside Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng's factory in Zhaoqing city
The Environment Bureau was expected to unveil a road map for making that a reality this month, addressing issues including expanding the EV charging network, training of EV technical and maintenance workers, and formulating a scheme for dealing with old EV batteries.