Productivity Council launches two-year cutting-edge PHEV technology project

The city's Productivity Council Wednesday kicked off a project that will develop a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) system for green minibuses, to provide an environmentally-friendly technology at a time when electric vehicles are not yet fully developed.

"At this moment, vehicles driven only by electricity cannot run for a whole day without recharging, but the new PHEV system will solve this problem," said Wilson Fung, Executive Director of the Productivity Council.

Under the new system, green minibuses will be driven mainly by electricity. When the battery power drops to a certain level, an auxiliary fuel engine will start to work and charge the battery while the vehicle is in motion, so that the minibuses don't have to stop and find a place for recharging.

One charge will take five hours and can provide 150 km mileage.

Fung stated the new system was the best choice of transitional stage technology in the advance toward pure electric vehicles. "In the future, when the battery technology becomes more advanced and can significantly extend the operating distance with one charge, the fuel engine can be easily removed since it is only used to make up for the disadvantages of the battery," he said.

Compared with the hybrid electric vehicles that are already available in the market, the new system is more environmentally-friendly. "PHEV vehicles will consume 50 percent less energy than traditional engine-driven vehicles, and 20 percent less than hybrid electric vehicles," Fung said. He explained that the hybrid electric vehicles switch the drive power between electricity and fuel, depending on traffic demands; however, in the PHEV system the engine is used only for charging.

If 6,000 minibuses in Hong Kong, including private ones, all adopt the new system, they could reduce carbon emission by about 165,000 tons every year, which is equivalent to planting 7 million trees that could cover all of Hong Kong Island, Fung said.

The Productivity Council, together with three minibus companies that own nearly half of the green minibuses in Hong Kong, will design and assemble the new system for an experimental minibus, examine its functioning and safety, and also run tests under various road conditions. The whole process is expected to end by March, 2012.

The project will cost HK$10.8 million, 90 percent of which will come from the government's Innovation and Technology Fund, with the rest to be provided by several sponsoring enterprises in the industry.

Fung estimates that the new PHEV minibuses will be more expensive than traditional minibuses. However, he believes that each vehicle could generate fuel-cost savings of hundreds of Hong Kong dollars every year.

Chan Man-chun, the CEO of AMS Public Transport Holdings, maintains that the new system will be a "green and feasible solution".

He said his company introduced electric vehicles about 10 years ago but failed due to the need for frequent charging. Starting from last year, the company also tried EU IV environmental vehicles recommended by the government, but found them unsuitable for Hong Kong's road condition and minibuses' operating practices, which require frequent door opening and closing.

(HK Edition 03/25/2010 page1)