Philippine e-vehicle industry should follow US, China

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines is urged to follow the track of China and California for the development of the country’s electric vehicle industry, with similar policies and incentives seen essential for its progress, the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (EVAP) said.

EVAP president Rommel Juan said there is a lot to be learned from these countries for a start-up electric vehicle industry like the Philippines.

“China has transformed itself into a global juggernaut in the electric vehicle industry, surpassing the USA as the world’s largest manufacturer and market for electric vehicles,” Juan said.

China last year sold 180,000 electric cars, more than half of the total vehicles sold in the Philippines in the same year.

“How did China do it? They merely copied California and in some instances, even added some extras,” he said.

The China Automotive Technology Research Center in 2014 invited California auto regulators to share their success secrets and later on dispatched experts to California to observe and learn more, Juan said.

Chinese experts learned that electric vehicle automakers in California are required to produce more environment-friendly vehicles year after year, he said.

“Simultaneously, the state built a synthetic market that allowed electric vehicle makers to buy and sell electric vehicle credits. They also invested in public charging stations and gave financial incentives not only to the manufacturers but to consumers as well. Today, California accounts for about half of the electric vehicle sales in the USA,” he said.

The EVAP president said the Chinese were quick to implement what they learned in California.

“Policy makers adopted a California-style electric vehicle mandate and jumpstarted the demand through purchases of government vehicle fleets. Buyers were given as much as $14,000 subsidy per electric vehicle purchased and many cities offered reduced parking fees and granted access to bus and high occupancy vehicle lanes. In Beijing, they even decreed that 30 percent of municipal vehicles be electric vehicles,” Juan said.

Juan said China may have even gone further than California in some instances when it comes to support for electric vehicles.

“They even gave reduced license plate rates. In Shanghai, it costs more than $18,000 to get a license plate. In Beijing, it is very difficult to get one and only one out of 200 applicants gets a license plate. This time, however, Beijing allotted 30,000 free license plates for electric vehicles in 2015,” he said.