Beijing Plans To Convert All Taxis to EVs
Photo: byronv2
Probably one of the vehicles that spend the most time on the road in any major city is a taxi cab. From the point of view of a city government where the area is plagued by thick air pollution, that means taxis are one of the major sources of exhaust fumes.
With that thought in mind, the city of Beijing is taking another step toward reducing its air pollution by replacing its entire taxi fleet with electric vehicles, as part of a draft work program.
The program is intended to control the thick air pollution in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and the surrounding areas. In total, the program is expected to cost about 9 billion yuan, or about $1.3 billion.
Replacing the taxi fleet would be a major undertaking, since the city of Beijing has almost 70,000 cars in its fleet. In addition to the cost of the new cars, the city would need to invest heavily in charging infrastructure, since apparently when the city added a sparse 200 EVs to its fleet in 2014, some drivers reportedly were forced to wait for hours to charge.
It is unclear whether the draft will be passed into law, but it is clear that Beijing needs to take action to reduce air pollution, as the already heavily-polluted city faced record levels of harmful smog in the past year.
News Source: Car Scoops
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