Call to arms- How to make Taiwan's population recognise and take seriously the air pollution here?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
21

Pretty much. That, and standard-issue human stupidity.

As HH2 said, electric scooters are now cheaper to run than gasoline ones. However much you try to fudge the figures, it’s virtually impossible to demonstrate petrol engines as having an economic advantage. But facts are irrelevant here. Omni is completely correct. People are swayed by emotional issues, not economic or technical ones - and besides, TL, you’re repeating a bunch of RWBH bullshit about the latter. A well-produced soap, as long as “the issues” aren’t shoved too hard in people’s faces, would definitely do the trick.

I just got back from Palawan, where the tricycle is king. The tricycle drivers make a basic living ripping off the tourists, but the locals pay only 5-10 pesos per mile (NT$3). Gas is P63/litre, and the scooters have inefficient engines which produce more smoke than horsepower, presumably because mandating decent ones would “hurt the economy”. Since tricycles spend half their time pootling along at 3mph, or stuck in traffic, electric drive would be ideal. If recharging from the grid at P9/kWh, the driver’s energy cost would drop by approximately two-thirds. One litre of gas is ~8kWh(th), burned at 20% efficiency, so that’s an astounding P39/kWh mechanical, whereas electric drive is about 80% efficient, or P12/kWh mechanical. Another way of looking at it: in city traffic a made-in-China engine gives you ~12miles/litre, or P5/mile; so the driver’s profit is roughly zero. An electric drive offers 10-15miles/kWh, or <P1/mile. If the driver covers 70 miles a day (the battery pack limit) his net profit jumps from essentially nothing to about P15K, which is a very respectable salary.

As for battery issues, I would suggest lead-acid would work just fine (in conjunction with a stringent recycling programme). A 6kWh pack, 2kW motor, and drive would cost about P70000 (decent quality), i.e., about twice the price of an equivalent ICE-based powertrain. It would pay for itself in less than a year. With an entire fleet of them on the roads, you could implement a battery-swap programme, thus relieving the driver of the cost of buying a battery pack and dropping the capital cost of the tricycle to less than the price of a petrol vehicle.

But that’s all just theory. Despite the handwringing about “going green”, I doubt there’s a single investor on the planet who would touch that with a bargepole, solid business case or no.

22

In high school someone brought an electric car made by Saturn to demonstrate it. It has faster acceleration than gas cars, and the cost to charge the battery fully is about $1.25 (in 1996). The car can do about 80 miles on a single charge but it still had the shortcoming of slow charge time (compared to filling a tank with gas). I thought it was actually perfect for routine commutes because it costs way less per commute than a tank of gas, and you can charge it at work where by the time you have finished charging you’re ready to head home. Ever since then however I never heard of another major auto makers make electric cars, and it would be really hard to find electric cars at a dealership (I would even say the same for electric scooters, you have to consciously look for it, and when you figure that the average person just takes the salesperson’s word for it, you can guess what happens)

Seems there’s no substitute for the good old lead acid battery. It is reliable and can dump a LOT of current in one go.

23

Which is what people use their vehicles for, 90% of the time. People get jittery because most countries have absolutely shite public transport for long-distance runs, and even if you can take the train, what do you do when you get off the other end? This is where systems thinking is so important. Private electric transport and public services need to be integrated properly so that people feel comfortable opting for range-limited commuter vehicles.

I agree. But it’s really damn important to make sure they don’t end up in landfill, and that’s where you’ve got the human factor to contend with.

Certainly no less so than (say) a lithium-manganese cell. More importantly, cell management is straightforward, and it’s dead easy to recycle them at end of life. Most other cell technologies are an almighty pain in the ass.

Not really. It’s best to keep charge and discharge to about 0.2C for maximum lifetime. But that’s not a big deal. High-rate types tend to be heavier.

24

Taiwanese don’t care. They just don’t care. You have the few odd ones who go for tangerine detergent and take their metal chopsticks everywhere. But on a whole people do not even appreciate the problem. To them there is no pollution problem as long as readings are marginally better than Mainland China. And people here love to blame things on the weather - even if the problem is obviously related to contaminants in the air: "The black build up on the outside of buildings? Oh that is the weather! "

Hence where to begin if even the existence of a problem is not acknowledged ??

25

the whole ‘me me me’ culture is too ingrained. i don’t see that changing and i don’t see them -on the whole- gaining much pollution awareness.

the only way to deal with it- in my opinion- would be from the government first. change the law and fine people or company’s that pollute and enforce it… simple as that. i have no trust in these people when it comes down to things that are ruled by the ‘me me me’ part of their culture.

hey i don’t think things are much better back home either. there is less pollution yes, but i don’t see massive change being pushed from the governments to stop destroying the planet or anything…

26

i’ll tell you why they use electric scooters in china over gas ones- because they banned the gas ones in the citys. it is that simple.

they are banning the electric ones too. because they are an eyesore.

but think about that, people used electric scooters and were happy about it because it was the only choice.

the government here should follow suit, a plan to phase out gas scooters, improve exhaust pollution and develop the electric vehicle industry. for me its a no brainer, all the scooters here look like shite anyway and are not taken care of. they are purely functional vehicles used to get from A to B. an electric scooter could do the job just as well, but when you have the choice of a better, cooler and cheaper gas scooter who is going to choose the electric one? almost nobody, its just common sense.

27

In this respect, things seem to be getting encouragingly better, and quite substantially so. I recently spotted electric scooters among the display of scooters in Carrefour. I don’t know how long they’ve been there, because I hadn’t looked at what scooters they’re selling in quite a long time. When I looked more closely, I saw that there were several different electric models, in a variety of styles to suit all tastes. I thought they were all quite pleasing to the eye, and ought to appeal to a lot of Taiwanese scooter riders, especially youngsters. But the best thing of all was the price, which came as a big surprise to me (since I’d somehow got the idea lodged in my head that they’re significantly more expensive than their petrol counterparts): With central and local government subsidies, most of them were selling for around 30,000 NT, far lower than the prices on the petrol scooters (around 50-60,000).

As long as a buyer has somewhere to plug in the scooter overnight or when at work or school, why would he or she choose a petrol one over an electric one? It even got me seriously thinking about buying one myself. I was very happy riding motorbikes and scooters here for a decade and a half, since they’re so much more convenient for nipping around on, avoiding traffic jams and parking, and cost so little to run. I only switched to a car after I got married, to cater to the wife’s preference, but still kept a scooter for occasional use in suitable weather. However, after my daughter was born, I stopped using it almost completely, since I would never consider taking her, or letting her be taken, on 2-wheeeled transport in Taiwan’s mental traffic. After having the battery go dead a couple of times because I didn’t ride it for a couple of weeks, it came to be a nuisance just keeping it (with the added expense and mafan of insurance, taxation and exhaust inspection), so I gave the scooter away to a sister-in-law, and thought it unlikely that I’d ever want to own one again. But now the easy availability, cheapness and other advantages of the electric ones has set me rethinking about this. Since I have my own big garage with plenty of space for a scooter and with several power sockets I could plug it into for recharging, keeping one for occasional use has become quite an appealing proposition.

Also, since I noticed those electric scooters in Carrefour, I’ve been looking more closely at what people are riding out in the streets – and it’s surprised and pleased me that there are more electric ones among them than I’d thought there might be. It seems they really are catching on, and with appropriately stepped up promotion, I don’t see why their popularity shouldn’t snowball, so that before very long, they make up the majority of sales of new scooters. I do hope so!

28

[quote=“Omniloquacious”]

Also, since I noticed those electric scooters in Carrefour, I’ve been looking more closely at what people are riding out in the streets – and it’s surprised and pleased me that there are more electric ones among them than I’d thought there might be. It seems they really are catching on, and with appropriately stepped up promotion, I don’t see why their popularity shouldn’t snowball, so that before very long, they make up the majority of sales of new scooters. I do hope so![/quote]

If it becomes a ‘craze’ like folding bicycles a few years ago, playing the ukelele a couple of years ago, or visiting a big, inflatable yellow duck a year ago, then what are we going to do with the old combustible engine bikes? We’ll have a new crisis on our hands.

We fear change:

29

Here’s a good explanation of health effects with a focus on Hong Kong.

scmp.com/infographics/articl … tter-comes

Ah real papers… :cactus:

30

Regret missing this thread earlier and any momentum generated when it was started back in April. Some very informed arguments concerning EVs and detailing of the local challenges were presented. I’ve been pondering at length whether to try to make some kind of contribution to change in TW. As maybe mentioned elsewhere, a great deal was witnessed in California as a co-founder of pluginamerica.org and a consultant on the film “Who Killed the Electric Car”. Still in the data-gathering phase now, and to that end, a question here regarding Taiwan’s oil refining practices…

Elon Musk has stated, “You have enough electricity to power all the cars in the [US] if you just stop refining gasoline.” Though the extra demand on available electricity generation in TW if a significant number of scooters go electric has been estimated to be surprisingly low (papers addressing this are of interest - please link) a key question is whether Taiwan, which imports over 95% of its energy, is refining all of the oil it imports over here itself (thus using a tremendous amount of resources in the process) or is TW receiving it somehow pre-processed, i.e. refined? The answer might be obvious. No.

Musk again: “You take an average of 5 kilowatt hours to refine [one gallon of] gasoline, something like the Model S can go 20 miles on 5 kilowatt hours.” For TW, if decreased demand for oil (and the electricity to refine it) for its fleet of scooters frees up available electricity, then the argument against EVs and the additional load they present becomes even less of a concern than it is now.

31

I still think the biggest hurdle for electric vehicle is battery. Current battery technology simply does not allow electric vehicles to be practical. You’d have to wait hours and hours to charge your car up. Then of course the battery contains a ton of chemicals that also causes pollution, and remember the battery does not last forever because they degrade over time.

A hydrogen system would be good because hydrogen can be made with electricity, but currently most of it is made from natural gas, and the process produces CO2!!

32

The paradigm shift is underway and those points, TL, have been covered ad nauseum. Much of the auto industry has been reluctant to canibalise their current business model based on selling ICEs with a huge aftermarket for parts and maintenance, mostly eliminated with EVs. Others see what’s ahead, such as the CEO of Renault-Nissan who is on record stating plans to convert most of its fleet over to electric during the next decade. Combusting fossil fuels in cars for the next 50 years is unsustainable, unacceptable, incredibly inefficient, and so very last-century. How up-to-date are you now on the impact Tesla’s been having?

TL wrote: “I still think the biggest hurdle for electric vehicle is battery. Current battery technology simply does not allow electric vehicles to be practical. You’d have to wait hours and hours to charge your car up.”

Essentially, battery tech is adequate and has been for awhile now - very reliable, with sufficient range in the vast majority of cases and continually improving; it’s merely expensive, but with economies of scale the price will fall in line. Remember, petrol is highly subsidized here and in the US, for example, where there are many hidden costs. It’s not a level playing field, but will have to move that way.

When people ask how long it takes to charge, one answer is “about 5 seconds”, the time to plug in or unplug. We make use of our time while charging and we do not spend most of the day driving (hopefully). Plug in at night and have a full tank each morning. Petrol stations are a headache, accepted as a fact of life, but they are no such thing, really. Yes it takes some adjusting to charging rather than pouring in liquid combustible fuel, but this is mostly because that’s all we’re familiar with as the way it’s been done for the past 100 years. Fast-charge/supercharging systems are out there (see Tesla) but they’re not at all the necessity one might think when unfamiliar with arranging for and living with electric drive.

Imagine how inconvenient it would be if all our current devices, the many millions which now run on lithium batteries (laptops, iphones, etc.) required fuel and a generator to run. The suggestion seems odd, perhaps because we just know from experience that the system of recharging devices is a simple, elegant, and an entirely effective system that we’re accustomed to. We don’t forget to charge our laptop or phone because we’re quite aware we need to, and similarly we generally don’t run out of petrol on the road because we know the consequences. In Taiwan, with the smaller batteries required by scooters, a service for any emergencies can be devised, delivering a battery if suddenly in need, renting it for a fee - a new service industry. But range is actually not much of an issue now with lithium batteries, or do you actually drive more than 100km a day on a scooter?

The cost of “filling up” on electricity equates to about 1/3 the cost of petrol in Taiwan, 1/10th that of many European countries, and 1/4 the cost of gasoline in the US. It’s very inexpensive, and unlike an ICE car, where the engine gets dirtier and more polluting over time, EVs run cleaner over time as the power supply mix switches over to more renewables.

TL: “Then of course the battery contains a ton of chemicals that also causes pollution, and remember the battery does not last forever because they degrade over time.”

Effectively managed by software, the batteries should outlast the current lifespan of a scooter in Taiwan. After 10 years, they can have a capacity of 80% that of new. As for recyclability, the batteries are indeed recyclable and the materials are of value. Lithium batteries are less toxic than the lead acid ones in every ICE car on the road today.

“A hydrogen system would be good because hydrogen can be made with electricity, but currently most of it is made from natural gas, and the process produces CO2!!”

This hydrogen wonderland of the future seems to have been a ploy by the car companies to foist back any serious threat to business as usual. Electrolysis for hydrogen is highly energy intensive, and then once obtained and used in a fuel cell, it turns out that the energy required for that whole process would have powered 4 times as many electric vehicles directly.

33

I wonder, is Taiwan not a prime candidate for nation-wide conversion to electric-powered transportation? Most people don’t have far to go, the cities are compact, and when there is political will change seems to happen fairly rapidly. Is there any movement in the works?

34

Yes

and

the opposite - I don’t think there is any interest in change nor anyone strong enough to stake their political future on making that change happen.

35

What Silas said. That post needs about six “recommends”.

TL: you’re really just quoting from PR published by TPTB. The technical facts are true: the conclusions do not inevitably follow (as silas eloquently explained).

Batteries were used with great success for traction applications before WW2. The industry was destroyed by assistance from governments (spending of public money on infrastructure more appropriate for gasoline vehicles), concerted illegal political shenanigans from the ICE/car industry, a subsequent decline in investment and R&D, and of course the Great Depression.

If batteries have only a limited storage capacity (and they do - there’s no denying that gasoline has a much higher energy density than electrochemical cells) then the obvious engineering response is to design the vehicles and the infrastructure around that fact (as silas said). Cars are ridiculously inefficient: you can achieve similar end-to-end journey times with about one-tenth of the energy expenditure, but you have to do things which are socially unacceptable, such as removing control from humans - but that’s been covered in other threads.

Only thing I’d disagree with in silas’s post is the bit about lithium batteries. I may be wrong, but AFAIK there is no viable method for recycling any of the popular lithium cell chemistries (lithium cobalt, lithium manganese, lithium iron phosphate). It may be that it’s technically possible, but nobody has bothered to develop an industrial process for it. At this point in history I would argue for a hybrid architecture using lead-acid batteries and overhead lines (or similar). There are several companies working on high-performance lead-acid variants, and the components are easy and safe to recycle as long as it’s done properly. I do appreciate that doing things properly is something humans are extraordinarily bad at, but it’s possible to deal with that with robust legislation.

36

In this respect, things seem to be getting encouragingly better, and quite substantially so. I recently spotted electric scooters among the display of scooters in Carrefour. I don’t know how long they’ve been there, because I hadn’t looked at what scooters they’re selling in quite a long time. When I looked more closely, I saw that there were several different electric models, in a variety of styles to suit all tastes. I thought they were all quite pleasing to the eye, and ought to appeal to a lot of Taiwanese scooter riders, especially youngsters. But the best thing of all was the price, which came as a big surprise to me (since I’d somehow got the idea lodged in my head that they’re significantly more expensive than their petrol counterparts): With central and local government subsidies, most of them were selling for around 30,000 NT, far lower than the prices on the petrol scooters (around 50-60,000).

As long as a buyer has somewhere to plug in the scooter overnight or when at work or school, why would he or she choose a petrol one over an electric one? It even got me seriously thinking about buying one myself. I was very happy riding motorbikes and scooters here for a decade and a half, since they’re so much more convenient for nipping around on, avoiding traffic jams and parking, and cost so little to run. I only switched to a car after I got married, to cater to the wife’s preference, but still kept a scooter for occasional use in suitable weather. However, after my daughter was born, I stopped using it almost completely, since I would never consider taking her, or letting her be taken, on 2-wheeeled transport in Taiwan’s mental traffic. After having the battery go dead a couple of times because I didn’t ride it for a couple of weeks, it came to be a nuisance just keeping it (with the added expense and mafan of insurance, taxation and exhaust inspection), so I gave the scooter away to a sister-in-law, and thought it unlikely that I’d ever want to own one again. But now the easy availability, cheapness and other advantages of the electric ones has set me rethinking about this. Since I have my own big garage with plenty of space for a scooter and with several power sockets I could plug it into for recharging, keeping one for occasional use has become quite an appealing proposition.

Also, since I noticed those electric scooters in Carrefour, I’ve been looking more closely at what people are riding out in the streets – and it’s surprised and pleased me that there are more electric ones among them than I’d thought there might be. It seems they really are catching on, and with appropriately stepped up promotion, I don’t see why their popularity shouldn’t snowball, so that before very long, they make up the majority of sales of new scooters. I do hope so![/quote]

Actually electric bikes are also a good option, no need for insurance or license and light and cheap. There are many new fangled (and pretty cool looking) forms of personal transportation appearing overseas, Taiwan is behind the curve on this.

37

You know, I never thought of it that way. Consider also that that one gallon of gasoline is turned into mechanical energy very inefficiently: You’ve got 33kWh in the original gallon, but you wasted 5kWh refining it from crude (not to mention the energy expenditure of drilling it out and transporting it), and on a typical journey you only get 5kWh worth of actual wheel movement out of it (30% maximum engine efficiency, but a lot of energy wasted on stop-start driving, inefficient points on the engine torque curve, and idling). So Musk is quite correct: it’s a total waste of effort.

They are missing a huge, huge opportunity. There will come a point - not too far away on the horizon - when gasoline just gets too expensive to burn. When that happens, there’s going to be a massive switch to electric vehicles. I’m convinced it will be as fast as the uptake of smartphones. Any country in a position to meet that demand will be rich.

As for electric scooters: I’d love to buy one, but even the best on the market are a bit crap, and I’d be worried about aftermarket support. The missing component here is a service network - so people can be assured that a breakdown can be repaired - and lots of public park-and-charge points. Neither of these will ever be provided by governments (and the former shouldn’t be). However, manufacturers need to standardize and design for repair. They need to get together and decide on a common denominator for things like DC bus voltage (so that drives can be mixed-and-matched if necessary), physical sizes, and on internal connectors and protocols (so that, for example, a different control system can be attached to an existing IGBT assembly). Ideally, they should also publish circuit diagrams and faultfinding guides for independent service companies. Until that happens, electric scooters will remain just another piece of consumer junk.

There’s an opportunity here - for a big conglomerate with cash in the bank - to get these people around a table, thrash out some national standards, and put down physical infrastructure to support electric scooter use (charge points/parking, and repair/upgrade shops). In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t cost a whole lot, but it cause a huge boost in electric scooter sales, and within 5 years or so they would have completely cornered the market for service and charging, and be the de facto leader for evolving standards. It wouldn’t actually matter much if the standards were country-specific: that’s good enough to achieve economies of scale.

38

it is but it wont happen. too many things need to be done to make it viable, biggest one is phasing out normal scooters. they are too cheap, nobodys going to choose electric over those.

39

Vastly lower operating costs and maintenance costs of EVs mitigate somewhat against the low purchase price of ICEs, but then again, there are electric scooters on the market now that match them in price.

I see the matter of their appeal, or their suggested lack thereof, as a very interesting design and marketing challenge. It’s going to be crucial to up the ante on scooter design in general with features that represent innovation, a better overall experience first and foremost, great design, and then, btw, it’s electric.

Taiwan, still ranked #1 in the world in terms of the number of scooters per km sq, has, in a sense, the greatest problem, and therefore an opportunity to work this in their favour, distinguishing themselves. Where the need is the greatest, the opportunity is as well.

Targeting the young, progressive, upwardly mobile demographic will be key.

40

I wonder if a leasing model would work? Let’s say people could pay 10K up front so they’ve got “skin in the game” (= less likely to trash the thing for no good reason), and 1500 a month thereafter, for as long as they like, with nothing else to pay, ever. No fuel, no maintenance, no repairs (except for damage they do themselves), no worries about breakdowns (recovery service provided), free parking in GPS-marked locations, free charging. Everything taken care of except the driving (!). It would certainly give me peace of mind.

I’m pretty sure a scooter commuter puts NT500-1000 in the fuel tank each month, so that would be about twice as much as running a scooter, without the aggravation of actually owning a scooter.