In mid 2011, Reuters reported that, even with government support and the popular support of e-taxi customers, challenges remain for electric vehicles such as the e-taxis to gain broader acceptance and widespread use. In China, charging stations are few and far between, repair shops are hard to find and the pure electric cars used as taxis are costly. Even after generous government support, the Shenzhen e-taxi costs 80% more than the Volkswagen Santana that is a typical taxi on the streets of Shenzhen.
"The electric car is still too expensive and we ended up paying a lot more than for a (VW) Santana, even with government subsidies," said Du Jun, general manager of Pengcheng E-taxi, the taxi operator participating in the pilot project.
In 2009, the Chinese government picked Shenzhen, plus twelve other cities, to lead the migration to green vehicles but, so far, Shenzhen and Hangzhou are the only ones attempting to launch e-taxi fleets. State-controlled Pengcheng E-Taxi, partly owned by BYD, a major domestic manufacturer of green vehicles, was incorporated in March 2010. Fifty e6 cabs, made by the Warren Buffett-backed automaker, landed on the roads in the city three months later.
"People are really interested in the car. Over 90% of customers start asking questions once they get in. And it's not just me. All my colleagues have similar experiences as well," said Zeng Xiweng, one of the company's top drivers.
Reuters reported that Shenzhen resident Daniel Li recently took a ride in an electric taxi, one of the red cars with a wavy white band around the body that have been operating around the southern Chinese city for more than a year.
"I like the car. It's big and sturdy, pretty much like an SUV but not as noisy. It also saves me the 3 yuan fuel surcharge," the 32-year old software engineer said as he got out of the taxi. "The problem is there aren't many out there."
Reuters says that BYD is using the pilot project to gather market feedback and make adjustments to the vehicles before rolling out the electric car nationwide.
"We had anticipated a lot of problems early on, but that did not happen and the data we've collected are actually better than what we got in lab tests," Stella Li, senior vice president of BYD, said in an interview with Reuters.
Money troubles
On the other hand, for Du Jun of Pengcheng, the project's hurdles are to the forefront. The company is still sitting on a big loss that Du blames on hefty upfront investments, insufficient charging spots and the limited distance that an EV can travel per charge. Though cheaper to operate, BYD's e6 taxi costs 179,800 yuan ($28,000) after deducting 120,000 billion yuan in subsidies, compared with less than 100,000 yuan for Volkswagen's Santana.
Safety troubles
In Hangzhou, a similar green pilot program stumbled when all the 30 of the city's electric taxis, which appeared on the streets in late January 2011, were pulled from service in April after one cab's engine compartment caught fire. The fleet resumed operations in June.
Taxi fire caused by a bad lithium-ion battery in a Chinese electric taxi
Source ZJOL
The fire was caused by the so-called safer lithium iron phosphate battery chemistry favoured in China, showing how nothing is inherently safe. China has more lithium-ion battery explosions in vehicles than the rest of the world combined, this being due to negligent design and construction. It makes it very difficult for the few Chinese battery suppliers that conform to the quality standards typical in Japan, Korea and the West. Such fires cannot be extinguished by conventional firefighting methods.
"Taxis are definitely a smart way for people to gain the kind of practical hands-on, in-the-field experience, but it will be very closely watched," said William Russo, an industry veteran who runs the Synergistics consulting firm in Beijing.
Painfully slow sales build up
Certainly, automakers are backing China's green-car drive but BYD has more at stake than others. The company, 10% owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, has been pushing more aggressively into clean technologies, from plug-in hybrids to energy storage facilities. The company recently raised $219 million in an IPO in Shenzhen to help fund battery research. It has sold only a few hundred of the F3DM plug-in hybrid in China so far and had a redundancy but that number is still more than any other domestic automakers, and its e6 was available in showrooms in Beijing and Shenzhen in the second half of 2011. BYD plans to deliver 250 more e6 cabs to Pengcheng by August. It will also provide 200 of its electric buses in coming months to the city's public transportation system. An electric sedan, jointly developed BYD and Daimler, will be launched by 2013. There is nothing painful or slow about the buildup in sales of hybrid electric buses worldwide.
For more attend Electric Vehicles Land Sea Air USA 2012 where a large number of electric vehicle manufacturers not seen in conventional EV events will present including WheelTug aircraft electrification, MotoVolta, LLC motorbikes, SolTrac farm tractors, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute AUVs and manufacturers of industrial, commercial, military, e-bike, cars and other EVs.
Also read Electric Buses and Taxis 2011-2021 .
