MANILA, Philippines – There are still no takers for the electric tricycles (e-trikes) under the Asian Development Bank-funded electric vehicle program due to pricing issues and lack of charging stations, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said.
The first 3,000 e-trikes have been produced and ready for delivery but are not being taken up by operators because they are too expensive, Cusi said.
“The problem we’re seeing is its affordability to the operators. If there will be takers, we will continue to promote that,” the DOE chief said.
Cusi said he had written ADB last week on how to move the program forward given the e-trike units are already available.
“The units are already there. So we wrote ADB, [asking] how do we move it forward, how are we going to resolve that… How do we make it affordable,” he said.
Japanese firm Uzushio Electric Co. Ltd. won the bidding held earlier this year to produce the first 3,000 e-trikes, with a cost per e-trike unit equivalent to $10,000, or around P480,000.
The 3,000 e-trikes, which is the initial phase of the $504-million joint e-vehicles program of the DOE and ADB, would be rolled out in Metro Manila, Region 4-A, and Region 4-B.