Teslas May Be Making Hong Kong's Pollution Worse
- City should focus on using cleaner energy sources: Bernstein
- Government forgoing more than $190 million in tax revenues
Tesla showroom in Hong Kong.
Photographer: Billy H.C. Kwok/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Electric vehicles in Hong Kong may indirectly be the cause of almost 20 percent more carbon dioxide emissions than gasoline-fueled motors, undermining the city’s efforts to get ‘green’ cars on the road, according to Sanford C. Bernstein.
That’s because Hong Kong relies on coal for more than half its power generation, according to Neil Beveridge, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Bernstein. The city should focus on shifting its power mix toward natural gas and renewables first before encouraging the use of electric vehicles through incentives like tax breaks, he said.