DOE nears full rollout of 3,000 e-trikes

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Energy (DOE) is closing in on completing the rollout of 3,000 electric tricycles (e-trike) under the government’s joint project with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), a ranking government official said.

Out of the 3,000 e-trikes under the project, 2,100 have already been committed for deployment, DOE assistant secretary Leonido Pulido said in an interview.

The actual deployment of these committed e-trikes are expected to be completed by yearend.

 “For the six areas that will have e-trikes, we’ve begun deployment. We hope to complete the deployment by December,” Pulido said.

The deployment areas include Marawi City, Las Piñas City, Muntinlupa City, Valenzuela City, the municipality of Pateros and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Pulido said the agency is now working on the papers of the remaining 900 e-trikes under the project.

Pulido said the remaining e-trikes are targeted at other LGUs. “We’re still finishing the documentation,” he said.

Last June, the DOE secured approval to extend the loan and rollout of the rest of the 3,000 e-trikes until May next year. The agency was supposed to distribute the e-trikes only until that month.

The DOF and ADB were the signatories in the 2013 loan agreement amounting to $504 million, or roughly P21.67-billion, covering the delivery of 100,000 e-trike units to local government units by the end of 2017.

The initial tranche involved 3,000 e-trikes. However, there were no takers for the units due to steep price per unit and the lack of charging stations.

But in December 2016, DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi decided to reduce the loan and discontinue the production of the rest of the 10,000 e-trikes to save government from incurring more expenses and from disrupting the electric vehicle industry’s growth from non-economical projects.

The existing e-trikes will instead be donated to LGUs to promote the transition to cleaner public utility vehicles (PUVs).