My experience after driving an electric vehicle in Hong Kong for a month
I swapped my Toyota Wish for a Volvo XC40 P6 recharge a month ago. And it has definitely changed my driving habits.
Range anxiety
One of the biggest changes I’ve had to make is being way more cautious in planning my routes. Before, I used to drive my Toyota Wish wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. With a 60L tank, it was easy to fill it up and drive for a few days without needing a refill. But with the EV, things are different.
First, there are no charging facilities at home or at work. There is also no rapid charger nearby, so it will take hours to charge up my Volvo.
The range of my EV is roughly half of my Toyota Wish, so I have to plan carefully where and when to go for errands, considering the availability of charging facilities and using every opportunity to top up my battery.
For example, I’ve stopped visiting a few shopping malls I used to frequent solely because they don’t have any EV charging facilities. And for any trips that are longer than 50 km, I make sure to top up my battery to over 80% the night before. The range anxiety is real!
Charging stations in Hong Kong
On paper, the EV charging facilities here in Hong Kong are quite good, with over 5,000 public EV chargers for around 50,000 EVs. However, about 15% of them are for Tesla only, and the other 25% are the slow 13A chargers (An hour for 4 km range!). Plus, many charging stations are concentrated in a few public car parks (EV charging there is free FOR NOW and most of them are mid-speed, around 7 to 11 kWh, so it takes a few hours to fully charge my Volvo). Furthermore, in these public car parks, many parking spaces with EV charging stations are occupied by petrol vehicles, which can be quite infuriating.
There is also the paid option. But even that is not very common around my area. I had only tried a paid EV-charging station once when I was at the Science Park, it cost me around HK$40 (~US$5) for 21 kWh (that’s around 1/3 of the battery, and is about 110 km range) and it took 2 hours. I also had to pay the car parking fee when using the charging station.
I would love to have EV charging facilities at home, but unfortunately, the criteria required for a housing estate to qualify for the subsidy scheme are unreasonable. The subsidy scheme apparently requires that EV charging facilities be installed on all parking lots, including motorcycles’, to qualify for the scheme. I can foresee it being a long and stretched-out affair.
Personally, I would prefer that our housing estate forgo the subsidy scheme and let individual owners apply for the installation of EV charging facilities at their own expense. It may be more expensive, but it would give us more control over the process and make it easier to take advantage of the benefits of electric vehicles.
Something about the car that I like…
I really like the look of the car. I think it’s pretty stylish, maybe not as Sci-fi as the Ioniq 5, but it’s quite classy and I even caught other car owners checking out my Volvo when I parked outside.
It also has a lot more gadgets than my old car. The map display on the dashboard is my favourite. I can toggle it on and off with a touch of a button. It also gives me an estimate of the amount of battery left after reaching the destination as well as at the end of the returned trip, which is very helpful.
The car is also very quiet. I guess it’s true with all EVs, but compared to my experience in a Tesla, I think my Volvo is better. At least I do not hear that weird whirring sound I heard in a Tesla.
And some that I don’t…
On the other hand, there are some gadgets that I don’t like.
The rear auto brake was activated more than once when I parked in certain car parks with wheel-stoppers. The rear auto brake came on so aggressively that I actually thought I had crashed into a wall or something. When I got out, I found that the wheel was still a foot away from the wheel-stoppers and there was nothing in between.
The sensors around the car are also very sensitive, which can be annoying when I am trying to access a carpark with my octopus card. They just beep like a symphony even though there is plenty of space between the car and the barrier.
The Volvo app is very basic and sometimes the connection is a bit iffy. I was told by the salesman that the data from the car is first sent to the server in Sweden before being relayed back to the App, so if the car is parked in some basement or place with limited connectivity (which is very common in Hong Kong), the app may not be responsive.
Final thought
Despite the challenges, I quite enjoy my new car and driving an EV definitely has its unique benefits. Taking advantage of the free EV charging stations on offer right now, I have already saved thousands on petrol costs. The relative lack of EV charging stations is not as bad as I thought it would be and is definitely manageable.
The electrical consumption of the car has also been better than expected, averaging around 18 kWh/100 km. As the capacity of the battery is about 67 kWh, theoretically, I could drive around 350 km before needing to recharge. In practice, however, I am recharging my car about 3 times a week, mostly for 1 to 2 hours to top up the battery a little bit. So far, the battery has never gone below 40%, which helps to soothe my range anxiety!
