Electric vehicles - just gear up, rev up and go

The acute shortage of charging stations and piles has become a frustration for Hong Kong's electric-vehicle (EV) owners, but a local startup has promised to offer them a relief with an innovative product "Gear-Up Charger", which enables users to charge their vehicles almost anywhere.

"It's like a portable charger for mobile phones," explains Mark Mak Hin-yu, founder of South Emperor ECO Technology Ltd who invented the device.

The size of a suitcase, the charger weighs less than 10 kilograms.

It's designed to make a sizable charger by extending the vehicle's power to cover at least 30 kilometers.

The product's uniqueness is the transformation of power inside the charger by using magnetic power with designated frequency, and it does not require any power supply connection while recharging EVs.

"It's safer," says Mak. "Safety and mobility are the crux of our design."

What troubles Mak - a PhD student of the University of California, Berkeley - are not technology issues, but the lack of an official standard for such a new product in Hong Kong and worldwide.

"Without such a standard, no insurance company would like to cover us, and we need their coverage for launching the product in the market," laments Mak, adding they have already completed the dust and water-proof tests that meet the safety standards of the International Electrotechnical Commission.

"Many technology startups' new products and techniques do face the same problem," he notes.

Mak and his team are striving to come up with such a standard, which will be reviewed by experts from the SAR's Electrical and Mechanical Services Department.

The experts have agreed to sell or rent the equipment to managers of large shopping malls and office buildings so that they could provide such services for customers. The potable charger is priced at about HK$30,000, and can be rented for HK$500 monthly.

"It's not easy for them to build charging piles due to the high costs and, more crucially, the difficulties in changing their electronic system," says William Hui Ki-fung, Mak's business partner.

He says it's impossible to transform the structure of some old buildings, and fire-control regulations have also to be taken into consideration.

Hui believes the market is huge. Hong Kong has about 7,500 EVs so far, but there're just 1,518 public charging facilities in service, according to the Environmental Protection Department.

He says the pivotal advantage of the "Gear-Up Charger" is its mobility. "It can be moved and used for charging everywhere, outside and inside, without any extra infrastructure construction required."

Some local shopping malls have indicated they're willing to cooperate, and power provider CLP Holdings Ltd is interested in the new device.

The startup also plans to sell the product to individual customers directly after making it smaller so they can restore the device into their trunks.

Zhang Kun, an analyst of automobile industry at marketing research firm iResearch, believes the new charging method is consistent with EV users' needs, but the key is to find a feasible and sustainable business model.

He said the rental market for mobile-phone chargers is very popular at the moment, and has caught the attention of many investment funds.

Such rental service enables users to rent a charger through an app and return it to any other charging station nearby - just like a bicycle-sharing system.

Zhang predicts that the potential of EV mobile chargers will grow if a similar business model is followed.

Mak and Hui, who were kindergarten classmates, founded the enterprise in 2016.

Last year, the "Gear-Up Charger" came in second in the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovative Startups Competition, offering the opportunity to move the business to Shenzhen' s Qianhai special zone and enter the Chinese mainland market.

Mak believes the technology will find broader usage in future. "We could combine the electricity storage system with solar panels to provide sustainable and stable power supply for some remote areas."

grace@chinadailyhk.com

(China Daily USA 05/12/2017 page6)