Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Tracking progress of EVs into Hong Kong

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

markwj

Asia Pacific
Moderator
Apr 10, 2011
4,681
1,380
Hong Kong
I thought it might be interesting to keep a track of the progress of EVs into Hong Kong.

Our government doesn't give highly granular figures, only overall totals, but here are the counts I have been able to find.

WhenVehiclesModelsReference
20033-LCQ20(2006)
20048-LCQ20(2006)
20058-LCQ20(2006)
2010-1274-EPD (wayback)
2011-12242-EPD (wayback)
2013-03430-LCQ14(2013)
2013-10552-LCQ14(2013)
2013-1259225EPD (wayback)
2014-0998634EPD (snapshot)

evnumbers.png


Other data points:

LCQ14: Electric vehicles

March 2013:
According to the reply of the Environment Bureau to my question in March this year regarding the Estimates of Expenditure 2013-2014, there were more than 430 units of electric vehicles (EVs) in use on the roads in Hong Kong at that time and, among them, only 75 units belonged to the government fleet, while there were about 150 units to be delivered within this year for use by various government departments.

November 2013:
We now have 147 EVs in the Government fleet, and another 74 units of EVs will be delivered to various departments from now on until early next year.
 
Last edited:
Is there any way of finding out from registration figures, how many Model S are on the road in HK?

Not that I know of. I've previously asked the EPD for a breakdown by manufacturer, but they replied that they don't publish figures from individual manufacturers (as TD don't provide them).

A LegCo question would yield the answers, but I suspect would just generate ammunition for the haters (included some of our very own elected representatives with their own agendas to push).
 
From the people I have met or seen contact details of, who owns a Model S in Hong Kong, I have 80 contacts recorded. Most of them I didn't meet (yet?), but I am quite sure they are genuine. A few would be couples, owning one car together, while others own more than one car.

My list of deliveries has grown to 50 - HK: Model S Deposit date - confirmation - Sequence # - expected delivery - although some of these won't be delivered until 2015. As these are only TMC users, there are of course many more delivered, that we don't know of.

I swag the number of Model S cars in Hong Kong to be between 500 and 1,000 already (probably closer to 500 right now, possibly closer to 1,000 by new year).

In some respects, it's good that the growth is controlled. Imagine if there were 5,000 Model S on the road tomorrow - superchargers would be so full they would never even have a chance to be ICEd, because there would be a constant line of cars waiting to charge.

Then there are all the existing cars. The Nissan Leafs, BMW i3, which at least some of are pure electric, while others are hybrid. It won't be long now until we can start a proper EV organisation in Hong Kong.

I think it would be realistic that there could be as many as 5,000 electric cars in Hong Kong, by year end 2015. How many new Leafs there would be would definitely depend on how eager Nissan is to lower the price to a non-inflated level - as they kept the price artificially high for so many years being almost alone in the market. A basic Model S 60 only costs slightly more than what the Leaf did, before the price was "adjusted" recently. More choice, more competition, soon there will be an EV for every segment, and the very basic Leaf will be down at the bottom of the list, until the Tesla Model III eventually hits Hong Kong.
 

Brilliant. This top level one:

Transport Department - More statistics are available in the Monthly Traffic and Transport Digest

seems to give us by month, back to 2001. Great find, and clearly the root-level source for the other legco and epd stuff I was using.

I'll re-work it over the weekend, using this as a source. Should get a much more detailed chart and it will be good to see the jumps showing up this summer.

On a side note, even if Tesla don't publish numbers, so long as BMW, Nissan and Mitsubishi do, we can extrapolate ;-)
 
500-1000 is a lot. My guess is closer to 500. All the sigs and a few of the early orderers. We're there 400 signatures sold?

Yes, unfortunately, it's probably closer to 500 - by year end, including the December deliveries. Hopefully rather over, than under 500.

It's not due to lack of demand, but rather a supply constraint. If there were unlimited supplies of RHD Model S cars in HK, for immediate sale, how many would you think would be sold?

I think a lot of potential buyers are put off by the long waiting time.
 
Wow, that TD link really shows a wealth of data.

One simple data point: Private EV car registrations, June through September: 340, 355, 515, 614.
Converting that to changes yields, for July through September: +15, +160, +99. A total of +274 over the three months.

Didn't BMW i3 deliveries start in October? If so, I think we're looking at close to 300 Teslas in the first three months. The estimates of 500 by year end are probably about right.
 
Well, Tesla Motors aren't going to tell us, so we are just going to have to keep making "educated guesses" about it. If they actually sold more that's just too bad. In any case, these cars are selling themselves so no need for TM to be shy about their sales!

Yet if there are official statistics from TD, TM can't do so much about that.

With thy all those delays because of the auto pilot, I recon there will be many deliveries from now on that it seems the first "new cars" are out.

Fingers crossed though there is also much to be done for the charging infrastructure. We are relying on a supercharger which is - by no traffic delays - 35 minutes drive away. Imagine there were many thousands Model S (or X!), with so few superchargers, that would have been a real pain.

Many local parking garage is still "working in it" since April, so ... no home charging for me. Yet.
 
Well, Tesla Motors aren't going to tell us, so we are just going to have to keep making "educated guesses" about it. If they actually sold more that's just too bad. In any case, these cars are selling themselves so no need for TM to be shy about their sales!

Yet if there are official statistics from TD, TM can't do so much about that.

With thy all those delays because of the auto pilot, I recon there will be many deliveries from now on that it seems the first "new cars" are out.

Fingers crossed though there is also much to be done for the charging infrastructure. We are relying on a supercharger which is - by no traffic delays - 35 minutes drive away. Imagine there were many thousands Model S (or X!), with so few superchargers, that would have been a real pain.

Many local parking garage is still "working in it" since April, so ... no home charging for me. Yet.

Tesla's owner adviser actually said qty sold is a trade secret. While it's nice to see more Tesla on the road I also start to have supercharger availability anxiety now. Home charging, for me, is still thousands of miles away. Some expensive parking lot, e.g. Lee Garden with only 2 spaces, doesn't show SC availability at entrance!!!
 
As at end of November 2014, there are 1213 EVs in use, up from less than 100 in end 2010. At present, 38 EV models from seven countries have been type-approved by the Transport Department (TD). These include 25 models for private cars and motorcycles, 13 models for public transport and commercial vehicles. The EVs which have been type-approved by TD and are available for sale in Hong Kong* as at end November 2014 are listed as follows.

Last Revision Date:10 December 2014


Following Mark's table, there are 986 EVs on the road in Sep 2014, but 1213 in just two months!!!

 
October 2014: Transport Department - October 2014
November 2014: Transport Department - November 2014

EV numbers:
August was 515 private cars, and 48 taxis.
September was 614 private cars, and 48 taxis.
October was 780 private cars, and 48 taxis.
November was 831 private cars, and 48 taxis.

So:
September: +99
October: +166
November: +51

Numbers for taxis are unchanged at 48 total.

Numbers for electric motorcycles are creeping up, 45 -> 49 (August -> November), but with 4 de-licensed the net is zero.

Given the last pre-ModelS, pre-i3 number from June 2014 was 340 private electric cars registered, and the November total of 831, we've seen almost 500 new electric cars on the road (more than doubling the June number) in five months.

Registered petrol private cars were 525,753 in June 2014, to 534,678 in November 2014, for a total of 8,925 new registrations. That puts the EV ratio at around 18:1 of new private car petrol/electric registrations. Compared to the first five months (January -> June), when the ratio was 468 to 1.

1 out of 19 new private car registrations has a plug. Now that is progress.

We're now holding our breaths for the December figures, which should see a big jump due to the end-of-quarter push from Tesla.

Note: These figures exclude government vehicles.
 
It's all very exciting.

Last night, driving home from work, 4 colleagues were going the same way, and I offered them a ride. Took the baby seat out and with luggage of five plus a baby seat in the trunk, there was still space to spare. It was quite a pleasure to share this experience, for them the first time to try an electric car.

Having said all this - as I said last night, it won't be too long until roles will switch: EVs will be the default purchase while ICE cars will become speciality vehicles, utility and so on. Even for very long range/endurance requirements, I can see plug-in hybrids taking over in most cases. Electric motors are just so superior to ICEs, it even makes sense to have the entire drivetrain electric, with the ICE having only one purpose being reduced to a simple generator.
 
I wonder how many of those new 500 EV's are Teslas, I think a big chunk of them. Everyone on this HK forum is seeing more and more Teslas daily. They are everywhere.



One thing I'm wondering is I noticed in Shanghai a huge number of scooters are now EVs but I haven't seen that trend in HK yet. Why hasn't HK adopted scooters as EVs? They don't have the charging infrastructure? You'd think with gov't spoken EV initiatives they would start converting gov't scooters to EV's and encourage the market place to convert over as well...