Going electric

When President Marcos recently boasted that “we will soon be seeing a Filipino electric vehicle, tricycle and maybe down the road, we can make a jeepney,” he probably didn’t realize that the factory he was visiting had, as early as 2008, come out with a line of electric jeepneys, with 10 units deployed around the Makati CBD.

The President’s visit put the spotlight on MD Juan Enterprises, which has been dealing with jeeps for six decades, starting in 1966 with importing World War II military jeeps and subsequently going into producing jeep bodies, known as Jeepstar. By the 1970s the company was exporting jeep bodies and parts to Japan, Australia and the US. From military-type jeeps (there is a big market for military jeep restoration) came the CJ series of civilian jeeps and then 4x4 off-road vehicles.

We decided to follow the President and visited the MD – for Maximino Dionisio, a dentist turned entrepreneur – Juan factory, a one-hectare facility on the border of Quezon City and Caloocan, now run by grandson Rommel Juan.

Before our tour, we were treated to pizza straight from the wood-fired oven in the factory. Yes, there is an authentic pizza oven on site (that’s a story for another day). Over pizza and Coke on the rocks – you can’t have pizza with tea, Rommel admonished me – he regaled us with the fascinating history of military jeeps – several of which are on display at the factory, carefully and authentically restored – its development and evolution and how this military go-to vehicle transitioned to a civilian jeep and is now a restorer’s passion and our king of the road.

The conflict in the Middle East – now on its seventh month with no signs of a peaceful resolution in sight – has brought to the fore the need for alternative fuel sources and alternative modes of transport that do not rely on gasoline or diesel. Thus sales of hybrid and electric cars have surged, given an added incentive of exemption from number coding in Metro Manila.

Public transport can greatly benefit from going electric, in terms of fuel costs as well as environmental costs (oh, those smoke belching and noisy jeepneys and tricycles!). So will we have electric tricycles, jeepneys and even buses on our roads anytime soon?

The bid to go electric for public transport – jeepneys and tricycles – has been going on in fits and starts.

The initial 10 e-jeepneys of MD Juan ran on a pilot green route around the CBD in 2008. Broader e-transport loop initiatives followed, such as the eSakay tricycles in 2019 plying the Makati-Mandaluyong route.

MD Juan also made e-trikes, at first just for private use. A big push came in 2015 with 100 units under the ETrikeBayan program, but unfortunately, the LGU where these e-trikes were deployed eventually banned them from the roads.

The biggest push for e-trikes came in 2012 from the Asian Development Bank, with a $300-million loan to replace 100,000 two-stroke and four-stroke tricycles in Metro Manila and popular tourist spots (Boracay has a fleet of e-trikes). It was a lease-to-own scheme with LGUs initially buying the units. The e-trikes, manufactured by a Japanese firm which set up a factory in the country, were expensive at $5,000 each, around P250,000 at the time. Unfortunately, the ambitious program hit several snags (like poor loan repayment by LGUs) and only 3,000 units were made. These were distributed to select LGUs throughout the country and the program was officially cancelled in 2016.

The ADB is still pursuing the push to electric, this time with the private sector – a $100-million package for rollout of 1,700 charging stations nationwide, as well as a $20-million green loan to scale up manufacture and export of EV charging equipment.

Thing is, e-trikes are already available here. ChatGPT gave me a list of e-trike models and dealers, with prices ranging from P50,000 to P135,000. While these models are imported, local technology and facilities can readily step in.

I spotted a prototype e-trike with sidecar at the MD Juan factory that is a motorcycle fitted with an electric motor and a locally manufactured sidecar. With increasing interest from LGUs, MD Juan is working on prototypes with the DOST, which has helped them upgrade facilities under the Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program.

As is often the case, there are existing laws pushing the use of EVs and hybrids. RA 11697 or the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act (EVIDA) of 2022 established the comprehensive roadmap for the EV industry covering aspects like R&D, charging grids and perks like the coding exemption and discounts on vehicle registration (30 percent for EVs, 15 percent for HEVs) as well as mandating government agencies, LGUs and PUVs to have at least five percent of their fleet as EVs or HEVs.

EO 121 issued last July 26, 2026 established a P60-billion fund aimed to turn the country into a regional automotive manufacturing hub, with P15 billion available per registered EV model.

Private car owners are shifting, as shown by the 132.7 percent surge in sales of EVs and HEVs in the first half of 2026.

But what about the public transport sector? Tricycles get their franchises from the LGU; jeepneys and buses from the national government through the LTFRB. The answer, it seems, involves the P-word – politics and political will. If politics can be set aside, the right incentives – especially financing – provided and, most important, the political will to get it done, we should be able to have a new system of public transport that is clean and less expensive for the riding public yet profitable for the drivers and owners.