Taiwan to ban ICE car & scooter sales as of 2040
Taiwan has set climate goals that include the country’s ever-present scooter fleet. All new passenger cars and scooters must be zero-emission at the tailpipe by 2040, and there are interim targets.
Taiwan’s government has also ruled that the share of new electric cars in Taiwan is to increase to 30 per cent by 2030 and 60 per cent by 2035, while the share of new electric scooters is to increase to 35 per cent by 2030 and 70 per cent by 2035.
The government does not want to impose a blanket ban on the sale of internal combustion vehicles but will subsidise the purchase of e-vehicles and invest in charging infrastructure in the run-up to 2040. The government will also push for all buses to be electric by 2030 and provide subsidies for bus operators to do so.
With the roadmap unveiled this week by the National Development Council (NDC), the cabinet’s policy planning body, the country aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. As part of this effort, the government there says it will “double its work” to promote the development of green transport while phasing out fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
According to NDC Minister Kung Ming-Hsin, the country wants to remain open to technology. The government does not want to prescribe whether the cars and scooters from 2040 will be powered by batteries or fuel cells. However, there are no concrete details on investments in infrastructure yet.
Local media quote data from the Directorate General of Highways, according to which 6,997 of around 383,000 newly registered passenger cars in 2021 were electric vehicles, which corresponds to a share of 1.82 per cent. In the case of scooters, 94,000 out of 809,000 new registrations last year were electric, i.e. an 11.6 per cent share.
Note the number of scooters in the country that is home to Gogoro. The company’s Battery Swapping system has become the de facto standard for two-wheelers in Taiwan: 95 per cent of electric two-wheelers use the batteries, which can be swapped at 2,300 stations in the country – there are almost as many swapping stations as there are gas stations.
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