Giving Up Gas: China's Shenzhen Switches To Electric Taxis

One of China’s major cities has reached an environmental milestone: an almost entirely electric-powered taxi fleet.

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The high-tech hub of Shenzhen in southern China announced at the start of this year that 99 percent of the 21,689 taxis operating in the city were electric. Last year, it still had 7,500 gasoline-powered taxis on the roads. A few can still be found, but electric ones far outnumber them.

The metropolis of 12.5 million is the second to achieve this feat in China and the largest. The northern China city of Taiyuan, with a population of 4.3 million, has had only electric taxis since 2016.

Shenzhen “has taken the lead among major Chinese cities,” said Cui Dongshu, the secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association.