Nissan in talks with gov’t on e-vehicles

MANILA, Philippines — Nissan Philippines said it is in discussions with government over issues regarding electric vehicles (EV), as it eyes to bring its product into the market.

“What we are doing now is we are working with the government in terms of defining the policies around the EV and, therefore, how it can enable us to bring the vehicle into the Philippines,” Nissan Philippines president and managing director Ramesh Narasimhan said in a media roundtable.

“We started that process, we are well into that process and we are progressing into that with the government,” he added.

Narasimhan said they are in talks with a number of Philippine government agencies such as the Bureau of Customs, Board of Investments and the Department of Transportation, among others.

He said among the policies being discussed involves the engine cubic capacity(cc) of vehicles.

“When we talk about motor vehicles in the Philippines everything is designed by engine capacity. For electric vehicles you don’t have engine capacity. So we need to have a change in policy that is inclusive of electric vehicle that doesn’t have a cc,” he said.

Narasimhan said the company is still evaluating opportunities to bring the EV into the Philippines.

“From a Nissan perspective, we are always very keen to bring the iconic vehicle here,” he added.

“The government here, they have recognized it (EVs) but they dont have excise tax which is fantastic, but we also need other policies to be clarified before we can start looking at [bringing] EV [to the Philippines],” Narasimhan said.

As of the first nine months of the year, Nissan Philippines accounts for 9.4 percent of vehicle sales in the country, making it the third top automaker.

Based on a joint report earlier released by the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc.(CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association Inc. (TMA), aggregate vehicle sales in the first nine months of 2018 dropped 14 percent to 261,057 units from 302,869 units last year.