To help Taipei achieve the objective of becoming a zero-emission city by 2050, the city government is focusing its effort on creating a green-industry-friendly environment to help resolve challenges brought by carbon emissions from petroleum and gasoline vehicles.
The promotion of Electric Vehicles (EV) is an emphasis of zero-emission policies around the world. With the growing popularity of EVs, the need for charging stations is on the rise. While there has been a growing number of charging stations at places such as parking lots, convenient stores, and big-box retailers, there is also an increase in accidents related to charging stations, such as cable line fires, battery-induced overcharge problems, and more.
To strengthen public safety while ensuring the continued expansion of EV charging stations, the Department of Economic Development drafted the “For-profit Electric Vehicle Battery Charge and Exchange Station Guidelines” after consulting and conducting opinion exchanges with related businesses.
The document covers aspects including the need to acquire a license before establishing a station, obtain public liability insurance, and set schedules for routine maintenance and checkups. It also calls upon operators to plan large-scale EV charging stations for separate districts to avoid the situation where individual buildings and communities race to set up their own recharging stations.
The city government expects to cut Taipei City’s carbon emissions by a total of 977,600 tons between 2021 and 2025. For its share, the Department of Economic Development is responsible for reducing 272,100 tons of carbon emissions. The agency plans to tackle the issue from three aspects: promoting energy conservation among businesses, installing more rooftop solar panels, and boosting the purchase of green power by major power consumers across various industries.
According to a report, electric vehicles have better efficiency in terms of the energy utilisation ratio of the fuel. Also, no carbon dioxide would be produced while using it. As the pollution source of the power generator is easier to control, advanced countries consider key electric vehicles development techniques. Electric vehicles have become the target that all countries aim to invest in.
Given the fact that electric vehicles need to employ lots of information and computer technology, Taiwan can assist the electric vehicle business developer and application developers thanks to its capacity in both electric and electronic fields. The vehicle industry in Taiwan is good at developing middle-small sized vehicles and motorcycles. Meanwhile, Taiwan is able to develop the techniques of small-volume, large variety production in response to the local market needs. With the development and application experience of low-speed vehicles, Taiwan is a suitable environment for the electric vehicle industry to develop.
When it comes to technological innovations in Taiwan’s transportation, Taiwan just recently launched the self-driving electric bus shuttle service between the Zhubei City downtown area and the nearby high-speed rail station. As reported by OpenGov Asia, the shuttle service constitutes the first commercial route for a self-driving bus in Taiwan and marks an important milestone in the development of smart public transport.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) stated that Taiwan’s traffic environment is more complex than in other western countries due to its high traffic flow and vehicle density. This gives Taiwan’s Information and communications technology (ICT) industries, automotive electronics suppliers and transport operators a competitive strength in developing related technology and services.
With the support of DoIT, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) developed the Surrounding Sensing Subsystem for autonomous vehicles and collected a large imagery training data that can be used for the unique road environment in Taiwan and Asia. ITRI has also established an industrial partnership programme that linked ten manufacturers and created a self-driving vehicle industry chain.