Hong Kong has seen a remarkable growth in the use of electric vehicles (EVs) over the last five years, to the point where EVs now account for 11.5 percent of all vehicles in the city, according to official figures from the Department of Transport.

The government deserves a lot of credit for introducing a wide range of subsidies and incentives in its 2021 Roadmap on Popularisation of Electric Vehicles but this rapid growth would not have been possible if Hong Kong was not already a relatively small and compact city, ideally suited to EVs.

You can’t drive very far in Hong Kong so you don’t need to worry about running out of battery charge, and the concentration of car-parking places in high-rise residential buildings, offices and shopping malls means that it is relatively straightforward and cost-effective to install charging stations.

Many housing estates have already installed charging stations in every available parking space, utilizing a HK$3.5 billion government subsidy scheme which proved so popular, it was completely used up by the end of 2023. The government estimates that the scheme covered about 140,000 private parking spaces in 700 residential car parks.

By contrast, in countries like Britain, where the population is more spread out and drivers have to cover much longer distances, creating an effective support infrastructure has proved problematic. Even with the availability of generous government subsidies, EVs still make up less than four percent of all vehicles in the UK, and only accounted for 18 percent of new vehicle sales this year, while in Hong Kong, EVs sales have outstripped conventional vehicle sales every year for the last few years.

The impact of the transition to EVs is already noticeable on the ground in Hong Kong where the choking smog appears to have lifted slightly and the air is more breathable. There is still a long way to go (buses, trucks and minibuses are still predominately petrol or diesel powered and will require an estimated HK$6 billion investment to switch completely to EVs) but the government’s target of zero vehicular emissions by 2050 definitely still seems achievable.

The government’s push towards a smog-free city is commendable but I suspect the policy is not entirely based on environmental concerns. China is the undoubted world leader in EV production, and demand for EVs is growing all the time there. It seems natural therefore that the Hong Kong government would seek to get on the same page as Beijing and actively push the sale of EVs.

But unlike mainland China, where sales are dominated by the Shenzhen-based BYD and Shanghai Automotive (SAIC), Hong Kong residents much prefer foreign brands, with Tesla by far the most popular EV in the city.

Just about everywhere you look in Hong Kong now, you will see a Tesla. The South China Morning Post reported that more than 40,000 new Teslas were registered in the city between August 2017 and July 2024, representing 47 percent of the 86,938 EVs sales in that period.

Next came BMW and Mercedes-Benz, both with about 11 percent of the market. Despite being significantly cheaper than its foreign rivals, BYD only cornered 9.7 percent of the market with just over 8,000 EV sales.

So why are Hong Kong residents paying nearly twice as much for foreign made vehicles when there is no shortage of perfectly decent domestic vehicles available?  The answer, I suspect is quite simple. Our choice of vehicle is an expression of our identity, or at least the identity we wish to project to the outside world. In purchasing a Tesla, it could be that Hong Kongers are making a statement that although they are now part of China, they still see themselves as different.

There is also the lingering suspicion that mainland Chinese goods and services are generally inferior to their foreign counterparts. During the Covid pandemic, for example, residents were given a choice of Chinese-made or foreign vaccines, needless to say, the take-up of the Pfizer/Biontech offering was substantial.

Of course, the situation may change in the future. There are a lot of mainland Chinese residents in the city who may well prefer their domestic brands over foreign imports – although most Teslas are produced in China so they are technically not imports.

BYD has opened a major showroom in the heart of Wanchai’s car dealership district, and clearly anticipates growth in the future, especially for its range of multi-purpose vehicles that are everywhere in Hong Kong. SAIC also has new showrooms located across the territory for its Maxus and MG brands.

It will be interesting to see how the balance of domestic and foreign EVs changes over the next few years. But regardless of how the EV market develops, I am sure Hong Kong residents will continue to find ways to express their own identity.