Prof. Hsieh advocates research-backed e-scooter electrification policy in the Commercial Times (工商時報)

Prof. I-Yun Lisa Hsieh took the lab's e-scooter research into Taiwan's national policy debate through the Commercial Times (工商時報), in a December 2024 article titled 「謝依芸：棍子＋補助 加速機車電動化轉型」 — "Sticks plus subsidies: accelerating the electrification of motorcycles." The piece ran as Taiwan's National Climate Change Committee prepared new 2032 carbon-reduction targets, with academia and industry proposing a flagship program for electric two-wheelers.

The Policy Case

Drawing on the E3 group's analysis, Prof. Hsieh laid out where the transition is stuck and how to unstick it:

• The cost barrier is real. Electric scooters emit far less carbon than even the newest six- and seventh-generation gasoline models, but their total cost of ownership remains higher. Mainstream battery-swap subscription plans cost roughly 2.6 times as much as refueling — a decisive obstacle for Taiwan's price-sensitive riders, and the reason fare subsidies are a feasible, critical policy lever right now.
• Swap stations are grid assets. The group's recent research shows battery-swap stations do more than serve riders: they act as distributed urban storage, charging during off-peak hours and discharging at peak, improving grid stability and resilience.
• Subsidies alone won't finish the job. Market uptake has stalled because policy lacks a "stick." Taiwan's 2016 CAFE-style fuel-economy standard is too lax and — unlike its US counterpart — never tightens year by year, so manufacturers feel no pressure to shift their fleets. Progressively stricter corporate average fuel-economy standards would push automakers to plan and sell enough electric scooters to comply, a gentler and more effective path than banning gasoline models outright.

Research Meeting the Moment

The argument rests on work readers of this site will recognize: the smart battery-swap optimization project, the group's V2G research on e-scooter battery-swapping ecosystems, and the public-facing case made earlier in The News Lens column. Bringing quantitative evidence into the policy conversation is a core part of the E3 mission.

Read more: the full article in the Commercial Times (in Chinese)