State-run Chunghwa Post said that it will rent 1,000 electric scooters for its delivery workers, to replace the company’s fleet of Yelang motorcycles, in response to the government’s efforts to promote “green” energy.
The company said it plans to phase out its entire fleet of 9,000 gasoline-powered motorcycles within seven years. It is estimated that the change could dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Chunghwa Post spokesperson Wang Shu-ming (王淑敏) said the electric scooters are well-suited to urban areas where travel distance sare short and repair and maintenance issues are easily handled, adding that the company will rent the scooters on a trial basis, starting in cities.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
The company will use scooters with greater torque and higher-capacity batteries to avoid issues for workers, Wang said.
The scooters are to be equipped with cargo boxes capable of holding 80kg to meet standard requirements, Wang said, adding that the vehicles will also be equipped with GPS to update drivers on road conditions and detours.
The company plans to purchase the scooters next year if trials go well, Wang said.
The cost of renting an electric scooter is NT$3,300 per month, Wang said, adding that insurance and maintenance costs are included.
This will save NT$10,000 per year for each petrol-powered motorcycle replaced, Wang said.
“We will work with the manufacturer to increase our usage of electric vehicles and eventually switch our four-wheeled vehicles to electric-powered alternatives,” Wang said.
One mail carrier who declined to be named expressed a less optimistic outlook about the new electric scooters.
“Motorcycles have lots of torque, whereas scooters might struggle with steep hills or heavy loads. They also have low bottoms that scrape the ground on steep surfaces,” the carrier said, adding that a full assessment would have to wait until the scooters are put into use.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods