In the past few years, we have witnessed a genuine revolution in the automotive industry, with the development and growth of the Electric Vehicle (EV) market. And while drivers in Macau were a little slow to adopt this new technology at first, today EVs are becoming more and more visible on the city streets, along with the necessary charging stations.
There are currently almost 3,000 EVs in Macau, with Tesla being the market leader with sales of over 500 here in the city. Porsche is in second place, with popular Chinese brand Nio in third. Other Chinese brands like BYD are also making a move, competing with EVs from more well-known European brands like BMW, Mercedes Benz and Audi.
In fact, a recent study out of the UK found that Macau was one of the best places in the world to buy an EV. Comparing prices for the Tesla Model 3, the study determined that Macau was the cheapest city in the world to buy one.
“The EV market has had a good start in Macau, and it is currently driven by the customers,” comments Ann Long, General Manager of Audi Macau. “As the world has been adapting to EVs in recent years, we have reason to believe it will eventually be our major transportation in Macau too.”
“We currently have four models here in Macau, two SUVs, the e-tron and e-tron Sportback, and two sedans, the e- tron GT quattro and the latest RS e-tron GT,” Ann adds.
A major challenge for improving the uptake of EV’s is building the necessary infrastructure, most crucially, charging stations. There are currently around 200 charging stations in Macau in 42 public car parks, with an additional 200 planned by the end of next year.
“It would definitely help if we can remove the hurdles for applying for installation of new charging stations, especially in residential buildings,” observes the Audi GM. “Macau is a small place, so all of our EV models and even most others in the market can drive around the city for days or even weeks with just one charge, but you still need that one charge.”
Ann Long suggests that the charging stations need to be where people stay the longest, at home and at their workplaces.
“Residential areas are the first place every potential EV owner would probably consider for charging their cars. Therefore, we need to make sure that parking areas in every new residential building are either installed or ready to install EV charging stations. Secondly, we need to shorten the processing time and procedures for installing EV charging hubs in existing residential areas. Additionally, infrastructure like super-fast charging stations would also help the EV community to grow, and reduce the number of the EV charging stations required.”
In an effort to promote EVs in Macau, in May, Lisboeta Macau opened its H853 EV Hub, dubbed the city’s “first one-stop Electric Vehicle service and experience hub.” It is currently home to the only Tesla showroom in the city, as well as a number of Chinese brands like NIO, HiPhi, QIANTU, GAC AION, Geely Geometry, Ninebot and SAIC Volkswagen, and offers on-site selling, repairing and charging. Uniquely, the Shanghai-based brand NIO has also set up a battery swapping station there, allowing owners to swap their old battery for a brand new, fully charged one in just a matter of minutes. One of the leading Chinese EV brands, NIO sold over 90,000 electric cars in 2021.
Indeed, China is emerging as the global leader in EVs, exporting nearly 500,000 electric cars in 2021, accounting for around 60% of global production. Shanghai is home to Tesla’s multibillion-dollar giga-factory, which delivered a total of 480,000 vehicles in 2021, accounting for around half of its global deliveries. The U.S. EV maker sold more than 320,000 cars in China last year.
Although clearly the dominant EV manufacturer, Tesla is beginning to face some stiff domestic competition in China. For example, BYD, a Chinese battery and electric carmaker based in Shenzhen sold about 584,000 EVs throughout 2021. To further encourage more EV sales, China is planning to build enough charging stations for 20 million EVs by 2025.
“Though there are still discussions around whether or not these new-energy-powered vehicles really create less impact on the environment, and cost less to their owners in terms of both refilling/recharging and aftersales maintenance, the worldwide sales trends already show that buyers are moving towards EVs very rapidly,” concludes Audi Macau’s GM.
A New Identity
At a recent event hosted by the France Macau Chamber of Commerce at Sofitel Macau, automotive designer Filipe Bragança spoke about designing smart transportation systems and tomorrow’s ideal EVs.
“An EV car has about 70% less components than a traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) car, therefore the design approach mindset is definitely different,” he notes. “We evaluate the overall package, to achieve optimisation between three main EV components: the power train, interior ergonomics, and exterior design. We further focus on people’s lifestyle experiences, while at the same time trying to set up a clear zero emission vehicle identity. Design needs to be at the vanguard in creating delightful user experiences for people when using their vehicles.”
Originally from Coimbra, Portugal, Filipe is a graduate from the prestigious Art Center College of Design/ Europe in La Tour- de-Peilz by Montreux, with a master degree in Automotive Design from Franco SBARRO Academy. Throughout his career, he has worked on a number of design projects for car brands like Mercedes Benz, BMW, Alfa Romeo, Toyota, Lexus and Honda.
“As a designer, our responsibility is to understand how to create sustainable, inclusive, solutions and proposals for using new environmentally friendly materials, merged with technology into an optimised package by what we call humanising design technology,” Filipe explains. “We must use the right materials and design for re-use, or for prolonged life cycles. There must be an integrated approach.”
While we are seeing many new EVs entering the market, Filipe believes that currently many manufacturers have not yet optimised their design concepts.
“Although most car brand companies are working on electric vehicles, the current options available on the market are still largely based on old classic/traditional ICEs, so from an overall design perspective, interior and exterior, they are very poor in identity and visual impact.”
But he believes that competition will drive improvements very soon.
“The next generations will offer more friendly, pleasant and new driving experiences, focusing on life mobility, and the designs will be more striking and sexy. Some brands are cleverly taking the time to develop a series of EV models targeting the interaction between user and vehicle in relation to driving sustainable technology.”
Filipe notes that SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles) are the preferred models for EVs currently, taking up a large percentage of the market, and highlights some brands he believes are doing particularly good work.
“The Hyundai IONIQ 5, Honda E, Mazda MX-30, together with Polestar, a subsidiary of VOLVO focused only on EVs – these brands are putting effort into developing and producing new generation EV cars focused on urban commuting. Each of them have their own personality, a strong EV image identity, as well as fully integrated driving experience purposes.”
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