Figures posted above are definitely old, as Mordeth said they dropped a lot last year… and there’s even more good news on the tax front, but lengthy trawling of TW govt sites has provided, surprise surprise… an endless sea of broken links and no concrete information at all BUT I’ve been told that as of this year the heavy motorcycle taxes have been reduced again… whilst details seem to unobtainable I’ve been assured that my new annual road tax for a 1200cc bike will be in the region of NT$4000… fairly reasonable… smaller capacity bikes must be almost free if this is really the case… Now if only the US would put more even more pressure on the yahoos who run this island to remove the obscenely high import tariffs and testing requirements we could have a bike industry in Taiwan that is almost in line with world standards instead of the backwater, feeding frenzy, rip off mentality that has defined the early years of legalisation of big bikes here…
Also, and its a big also, the grapevine has it that again due to US pressure to remove the multitude of “non tariff barriers to free trade” that the greasy little prats in government have surreptitiously set up to protect their Hong Bao’s from Kymco and the like, the laws will be modified to allow access for bikes 400cc and over to all roads and highways on the island, bar the three major “flower” freeways, which is good news indeed…
As always there’s some bad news to sour the mix a little in that apparently they have moved onto “phase 4” of the “Planet Taiwan Mad Hatters Emissions Test”… the previous phase 3 already had bikes that happily passed EU3 and California, the two strictest emissions standardsin the world failing Taiwans nonsense “standard” test, stopping the sales of bikes like the K5 GSX-R… Now the phase 4 test apparently has halved the allowed emissions from phase 3 AND the noise limit has been cut by a third or something… So even though big bikes could never possibly account for more than 0.0001% of the islands annual air pollution output, and making a huge f*cking noise is the closest thing Taiwan has to a national sport, in the new “standard” the ignorant yobs in govt have found a nifty new barrier to effectively cripple the WTO dictated free import and sale of heavy motorcycles since basically you’ll need a bike that runs on hydrogen to get anything past the new tests… :s
[EDIT: Ooops, just read the title of this thread… sorry about the hijack ]
As always there’s some bad news to sour the mix a little in that apparently they have moved onto “phase 4” of the “Planet Taiwan Mad Hatters Emissions Test”… the previous phase three already had bikes that happily passed EU3 and California, the two strictest emissions standardsin the world failing Taiwans nonsense “standard” test, stopping the sales of bikes like the K5 GSX-R… Now the phase 4 test apparently has halved the allowed emissions from phase 3 AND the noise limit has been cut by a third or something… So even though big bikes could never possibly account for more than 0.001% of the islands annual air pollution output, and making a huge f*cking noise is the closest thing Taiwan has to a national sport, in the new “standard” the ignorant yobs in govt have found a nifty new barrier to effectively cripple the WTO dictated free import and sale of heavy motorcycles since basically you’ll need a bike that runs on hydrogen to get anything past the new tests… :s
[EDIT: Ooops, just read the title of this thread… sorry about the hijack ][/quote]
I’m guessing the city busses that have their very own black clouds that trail along behind them pass these emission tests? As well as every blue truck on the road?
So what are the big bike dealerships going to do if these emission tests go through? And what happens when you need to re-test your own bike?? It’ll probably fail…which means a legal bike now…will be illegal in a few years when you need to go in for testing? Gonna be a lot of unhappy campers. You buy a stock bike for 1,000,000nt…a few years later the government tells you it fails an emissions test and therefore is illegal? Fuck.
No problem, I actually wanted to change the topic of the thread already into something like bike and car tax levels but I am just to stupid to figure out how.
Mordeth: No, the safety and emissions laws always apply from the either the date of manufacture or date of first registration. If it was built in (say) 1986, then the emissions regs that were in effect then are applied now at smog-test time. You also will not find a country in the world that applies the private passenger vehcile emissions standards to commercial or industrial vehicles. It’s all about who has the best lobbyists.
Wow, cheers. I’m definitely going down the big bike route, especially since it seems like things are going to have improved even more by the time I’m ready for a serious machine. Freeway access would clinch it because then you’re talking about a viable replacement for a car instead of a very expensive toy.
NT$4k for a 1200cc seems very reasonable compared with the UK. I figure that since I don’t smoke or drink and generally lead an extremely boring life I can afford to burn 600k and maybe 60k a year on a long-term hobby.
What about the situation on 2nd hand bikes? I’ve never bought a new vehicle in my life and don’t intend to start now. And are self imports still an impossible task?
What about the situation on 2nd hand bikes? I’ve never bought a new vehicle in my life and don’t intend to start now. And are self imports still an impossible task? [/quote]
Self-imports are still not worth the hassel. Unless you are fluent in Chinese and have connections with influence on that kind of thing. But there are plenty of 2nd hand bikes on Taiwan Yahoo: tw.bid.yahoo.com/tw/2092081450-category.html
Interesting information. If only the people riding the bikes were subject to as high a level of testing as the bikes themselves the roads would be a lot safer and biking a lot more pleasurable.
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Great post!!! Plas for Mayor!!!
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