Two Incentive Measures Promulgated for Replacing Old Motorcycles
The EPA subsidizes NT$2,000 per vehicle for motorcycle owners to phase out motorcycles manufactured before 30 June 2007. If the public replaces old motorcycles with electric ones and agrees to have greenhouse gas reduction benefits vested in the EPA, an additional bonus of NT$1,000 will be provided. The two incentive measures announced are effective from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2023. Qualified applicants can submit their applications at the EPA’s Recycling of End-of-life Vehicle’swebsite
(https://epamotor.epa.gov.tw/people/OneStepServiceIndex.aspx).
Since 2020 when the EPA began to encourage the public to replace motorcycles manufactured before 30 June 2007, more than 1.2 million units have been replaced, which equals a quarter of the nation’s old motorcycles and a 14% reduction of emissions from motorcycles, benefitting the improvement of air quality. Considering that 3.54 million aging motorcycles with higher pollutant emissions remain on the streets, continuous encouragement to phase-out old motorcycles is necessary.
In addition, replacing fossil fuel-burning motorcycles with electric ones brings carbon reduction benefits. In accordance with the Offset Principles for the Increased Greenhouse Gas Emission Caused by Development Activities enacted by the EPA in 2020, the carbon reduction benefit of replacing each aging motorcycle is approximately 2.3 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, which can serve as a source for large-scale development projects that have passed the environmental impact assessment (EIA) to obtain offsets for the increased greenhouse gas emission.
According to the EPA, a plan for obtaining greenhouse gas offset must be proposed by the EIA-qualified development projects and approved by the EPA before being implemented, and to encourage the public to replace aging motorcycles with electric ones, future development entities or local governments should grant at least NT$1,000/vehicle upon obtaining the carbon reduction benefits from replacing each old motorcycle with an electric one. At present, the implementation plans of the development entities have yet to be sent to the EPA, so the EPA has specified in the Regulations Governing Incentives for Replacing Old Motorcycles with Electric Motorcycles to Reduce Greenhouse Gas (hereinafter as the Regulations) that NT$1,000 reward/vehicle shall be given to those who agree to have the greenhouse gas reduction benefits from replacing old motorcycles with electric ones vested in the EPA, in addition to the NT$2,000/vehicle for replacing old motorcycles and the original NT$300 incentive refund/vehicle, totaling NT$3,300/vehicle, from 1 January this year to the end of 31 December next year.
In consideration of the plans to obtain carbon reduction benefits by replacing aging motorcycles with electric ones to be proposed by EIA-qualified development entities or local governments in the future, those who have acquired electric motorcycles previously may also choose to receive first a subsidy of NT$2,300/vehicle for scrapping and recycling aging motorcycles, and later submit the application online for the NT$1,000 reward/vehicle before 10 January 2024 with the receipt from the purchase of a new electric motorcycle under the Regulations.
Excerpt from Major Environmental Policies, February 2022