E-vehicle project gets Japan grant

The Board of Investments (BOI) is hoping to give the electric vehicle (EV) industry the much needed boost with the rollout of a P550-million electric tricycle project in Manila on Thursday.

A project like this, funded through a grant from Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (Nedo) and in coordination with Japanese IT service provider SoftBank, promotes the widespread acceptance of EVs for public transport. The goal is to eventually make the Philippines a manufacturing hub in Southeast Asia, said Ma. Corazon Halili Dichosa, executive director at the BOI.

Dichosa said the more people get used to EVs, the higher the demand would be. This, in turn, was expected to encourage more local operators to adopt the use of the vehicles and to increase domestic production.

A mere 10-percent of these kinds of vehicles plying the country’s roads can already yield significant benefits for the economy, including 100,000 new jobs, over P1.6 billion in health benefits, and reduction in vehicle maintenance costs, among others.

The newly launched EV project, called the Mobility as a System (MaaS), saw the rollout of 50 e-trikes that would traverse a fixed route within Intramuros. Seventeen charging stations would also be put up within the area.

The project would run for two years beginning October until September 2018.

“This is still an emerging industry. We still have a small number of players and units. We’re still at the stage wherein we are still implementing the electric vehicle roadmap. We’re still at that stage of figuring out how to make acquisition of EVs more affordable and reasonable,” Dichosa said.

Only a few thousand units were currently being produced while only a few hundreds could be seen on the roads, she said.

She added the government was working with the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Land Bank of the Philippines to help potential operators tap manufacturers.

“But the actual use, however, will depend on the local manufacturers’ tie-up with the local government units. Right now, in Manila, they have an ordinance encouraging some of the local transport operators to utilize EVs,” she said.