Inchcape, the distributor in Hong Kong for carmakers including SAIC Maxus, Toyota, Lexus, Land Rover and Jaguar, has plugged in its first public charging station in the city, as electric vehicle (EV) sales surge amid a relative lack of public charging infrastructure.
The city needs more charging stations to support the use of EVs as the government pushes to decarbonise transport, Ted Lau, managing director of Inchcape Greater China, said at a launch event on Thursday.
“A lack of charging facilities is one of the pain points of EV car owners in the city,” he said. “We hope to provide this as a solution to customers’ charging needs when they buy our EV brands” and to signify “our company’s commitment to sustainability”.
Hong Kong had 91,633 registered plug-in EVs as of April, a 68 per cent increase from a year ago, according to data from the Transport Department. EVs account for 14 per cent of the city’s private cars. However, there were only 8,056 EV chargers for public use, including 4,662 medium-speed chargers and 1,397 quick chargers, as of the end of March.
The government outlined plans three years ago to encourage uptake of EVs, with a target to stop registering new petrol and petrol-electric hybrid vehicles by 2035.
Inchcape’s first public charging station, in the car park of the Landmark East grade A commercial building in Kwun Tong, owned by Wing Tai Properties, is equipped with three 60-kilowatt (kW) fast chargers and four 7-kW medium-speed chargers.
Fast charging costs around HK$4 per kW-hour (kWh), and HK$2.70 per kWh at the medium charging speed, said Alen Wong, aftersales director of Inchcape Greater China.
Inchcape also hopes to partner with petrol stations in Hong Kong to install EV charging facilities.
“We want to create an ecosystem that can benefit all EV owners, so that potential users will also choose Inchcape’s EV brands and services in the future,” said Suzanna Yip, the company’s marketing director. “This will benefit our company’s profits in the long run.”
Jonathan Chiu, president of Schneider Electric Hong Kong (left), and Ted Lau, managing director at Inchcape Greater China, at the launch of Inchcape’s public charging station on June 12, 2024. Photo: Martin Choi
London-based Inchcape Group has set itself a target of generating 50 per cent of its sales in Hong Kong from EVs and hybrids by 2026, CEO Duncan Tait told the Post last October. Hong Kong has served as the base of Inchcape’s Asia-Pacific operations for 56 years.
French energy-management and digital automation firm Schneider Electric created the proprietary application, charging and management system for Inchcape’s first charging station.
Last month, Schneider Electric said it expects to sell 15,000 EV chargers by 2026, a near fivefold jump from around 3,300 charging points installed by the company as of last month. The company will place its chargers, which can be found in 90 locations across the city, mostly shopping malls, in more residential estates in line with the government’s push to expand EV charging infrastructure.
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