That is exactly it.
These scooter companies are billion dollar enterprises. They were formed by merging smaller companies into a couple of very large companies decades ago.
They are majority owned by some old rich families in places like Changhua. Almost no Taiwanese know this either. These families are extremely ‘di diao’ even in Taiwan (keep their heads down, most likely their kids and grandkids do not even live in Taiwan in many cases ).
Their profit margins must be enormous and they obviously lobby the local govt hard.
Again BrianJones has done the research where others have never looked.