An electric bus charging facility at Taipei Metro’s Beitou Depot officially opened yesterday with 22 charging bays to serve the city’s 886 electric buses.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) told a ceremony to mark the opening of the facility that the city aims to fully electrify its bus fleet by 2030.
The number of electric buses has grown from about 650 last year to 886 this year and is expected to surpass 1,000 by the end of the year, Chiang said.
Photo: Tung Kuan-yi, Taipei Times
Setting up the charging station in a metro depot optimizes land and energy use, as the metro uses power mainly during the day, while electric buses charge at night, he said.
Chiang said that he shared Taipei’s practices in waste management and green transportation at the Mayors’ Summit in Paris, which marked the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement.
Taipei is to host the World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems in 2029, at which the capital would showcase its advancements to the global community, he added.
The Taipei Department of Transportation said in a statement that the charging site would operate from midnight to 6am daily, allowing buses to recharge during off-peak hours.
Ho Cheng (賀政), chairman of Danan Bus Co, which built the facility, told the ceremony that as of Tuesday, the company had 21 electric buses running on Route 288 from Shilin District (士林) to Taipei City Hall.
The total investment in infrastructure was about NT$90 million (US$3.1 million), jointly funded by the company and the Taipei City Government, each contributing 50 percent, Danan Bus said.
Each electric bus takes about 3.5 hours to fully charge, the company said, adding that charging during off-peak hours cuts costs significantly, with off-peak electricity priced at NT$3 per kilowatt hour compared to NT$10 during the day.
It invested NT$400,000 in firefighting equipment to help ensure public safety at the station, Danan Bus said.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS