Taipei, 10 April 2015 – On 10 April 2015 the EU-Taiwan Electric Vehicle (EV) Seminar: Policies, Standards, Regulations hosted a field of distinguished experts on electric vehicles, from the European Union and Taiwan, who exchanged experiences on government policies promoting EVs and EV technical issues in the EU and Taiwan. More than 180 officials from Taiwanese public entities, European representative offices in Taiwan, industry and academia attended the seminar and participated in the lively panel discussion held at the end of the seminar, which provided a platform for further cooperation between the EU and Taiwan.

The seminar was organized jointly by the European Economic and Trade Office (EETO), under the framework of the European Business and Regulatory Cooperation Programme (EBRC), the Bureau of Standards, Metrology & Inspection (BSMI) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) of the MOEA, and co-organised by the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC).

The EV seminar provided a platform for all stakeholders to increase their understanding of the best practices related to smart transportation, and to pave the way to facilitate the drawing up of EV safety regulations in Taiwan in line with international practices, and to stimulate the upgrading of industry and technology. Viktoria Lövenberg, Deputy Head of Office of the EETO, Liou Ming-Jong, Director General of BSMI, and Yang Shu-Mei, Deputy Director General of the BOFT delivered opening remarks at the seminar by welcoming greater information exchanges and future cooperation between Europe and Taiwan.

Mr Liou highlighted that in order to accelerate the development of electric vehicles in Taiwan, the BSMI has actively promoted the establishment of standards in the operating environment for electric vehicles since 2011. As of the end of 2014, 34 national standards for electric vehicles had been established, as well as more than 50 real car test items.

The BSMI also provides verification services through various means and synchronous import technical exchanges. These services help domestic manufacturers to improve their knowledge of product verification and technical information and provide comprehensive technical support during the development phase of key domestic electric vehicle components.

Ms Lövenberg stated that the challenges posed by the need for reducing the massive environmental impact of road transport are common to Taiwan and the EU. "Driving and transportation are one of the most polluting acts that we commit on a daily basis. Efforts to fight air pollution caused by transport have been high on the agenda of policy makers in Europe. These efforts are translated into actions to reduce the number of cars, smart traffic management, green public procurement, incentives for the development of green automotive technologies and green and sustainable public transportation and also promotion of cleaner forms of transport like cycling and walking," she said.

She further mentioned that promoting a clean and energy-efficient transport system requires the creation of the right framework conditions, through research, legislation and standards. This implies designing an enabling environment where new technologies are not only greener, thus contributing to the improvement of air quality and addressing climate change and fossil fuel dependency, but are also resulting in vehicles that are competitively priced without compromising on safety.

Ms Yang Shu-Mei stated that following the global trend of energy efficiency and carbon reduction, electric vehicles promise huge business opportunities in the future and that the Taiwan government has actively encouraged domestic manufacturers to develop technical capacity. She expressed the view that Taiwan industry players look forward to cooperating with European companies at all levels, in order to increase the percentage of key components made domestically, support Taiwanese manufacturers of key EV components to enter the international supply chain, make breakthroughs in battery technology, as well as to obtain green business opportunities.

The seminar had two sessions: Government policies promoting EVs and EV technical issues. The European experts were Mr Aleksander Lazarevic from the European Commission's DG-GROW, Mr John Lin, Vice President from Ford Lio Ho Motor, Mr Frank Vitte, Regional Vice President of Asia & Middle East from Blue Solutions, Mr Wolfram Wagner, General Manager of TÜV Rheinland Taiwan, Mr Steve Hsu, Business Development Manager of ABB, and Mr Michail Voigt, Senior Sales Manager of Siemens PD LD TD HD.

The Taiwanese experts were Mr Tsao Chin-Wei (趙晉緯), Section Chief, Department of Railways and Highways from the MOTC, Ms Denise Hung (洪薪如), Intelligent Electric Vehicle Promotion Office, Industrial Development Bureau of the MOEA, Mr Sung Jui-Yi (宋瑞義), Member of the National Standards Technical Committee on Electrical Engineering, Mr Lien Shan-Li (連杉利), Technical Specialist Environmental Protection Administration, Mr Simon Hsu (許志成), Director of the Certification Division, Vehicle Safety Certification Center, Mr BM Lin (林炳明), Manager of Industrial Technology Research Institute, Mr Lan Pei-Hsiu (藍培修), Section Manager, Electric Appliance Testing Department, Renewable Energy Laboratory of Taiwan Electric Research & Testing Center and Mr Simon Hsiao (蕭育宜), Section Manager, Product Safety Testing Department, Electronics Testing Center.

Q&As were held at the end of morning and afternoon sessions of the seminar to discuss EV policies in the EU and Taiwan, as well as technical issues of EV-related infrastructure and batteries. The lively panel discussion was a fitting end to a productive seminar that helped to improve understanding among stakeholders of technical and regulatory issues related to the development of electric vehicles.