A trade association of car manufacturers and sellers said that local sales of electric vehicles (EV) in 2024 is expected to surpass last year by at a tenth, drawing optimism that the government’s vehicle modernization efforts will drive the growth.
Rommel Gutierrez, president of the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. (CAMPI) told reporters last week that they expect EV purchases to grow by at least 10 percent, with hybrid vehicles leading the purchases.
READ: Industry group sets sight on selling 2.45M EVs by 2028
“Purchases of hybrids (EVs) are more numerous,” he said on the sidelines of the 9th Philippine International Motor Show (PIMS) , noting that it comprises about 75 percent of the total sales volume.
For 2025, the CAMPI official said that they are also projecting the growth in purchases of EVs to “grow easily” by another 10 percent.
Latest sales data from the CAMPI and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA), shows that 11,186 EV units were sold from January to August this year, indicating a 3.7 percent share of the total sale volume.
In 2023, EV sales in the Philippines reached 10,602 units, according to their records.
Last week, the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (EVAP) said they are looking to reach sales volume of 2.45 million units by 2028, falling in line with the government’s target that was announced a year earlier which has the same target numbers.
In March 2023, the DOE said it plans to roll out more than 2.45 million of these more environment-friendly vehicles as well as 65,000 EV charging stations starting that year until 2028.
EVAP President Edmund A. Arraga expressed optimism that the milestone can be reached, citing the two-year-old Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act (EVIDA) in full swing.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), for its part, is also looking at completing a new EV manufacturing incentive scheme by the end of the year to attract more local producers of these vehicles and their parts.
Trade undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo they are looking to pattern it closely after the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) program, but without the manufacturing volume requirements needed for local producers to be eligible to tax perks.
The CARS program is a P27-billion incentives program for local automotive manufacturers which was signed back in 2015.
The government currently has two participating companies under the program, Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (TMPC) and the Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. (MMPC), the local units of two of the biggest Japanese car brands.
Under the agreement, both were required to locally produce 200,000 units of the Toyota Vios and the Mitsubishi Mirage models within six years after starting production in 2018 to avail of the tax incentives.