Tortuous climb seen for e-vehicles

A tortuous journey awaits electric jeepneys and electric cars in the country, with transportation officials imposing new and additional requirements before the registration and licensing of these units.

A year after their successful debut in Makati in July 2007, the electric jeepneys have yet to be registered and given their respective license plates as both the Land Transportation Office and Land Transport Franchising and Regulatory Board are now insisting on adding new requirements like having the imported units listed in the articles of incorporation; maintaining a showroom in Metro Manila and other requirements.

“And the loser in the long run is not Solar Electric Co. (which pioneered in designing and importing e-jeepneys from China last year) or local manufacturers (like the Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturers Association that recently launched its locally assembled e-jeepney) but the commuters and consuming public and the country since we continue retarding the growth of this sunshine sector,” said Solarco president Robert Lopez Puckett to The STAR. “Solarco introduced electric jeepneys to the world last year and yet we can not go full steam ahead because of these legal stumbling blocks. Other countries in the world like China have adopted our e-jeepney and they are going so fast with it. We will again be trailing behind our neighbors,” he lamented.

“We already have a showroom in Bacolod but LTO and LTFRB want us to invest in another showroom here in Metro Manila, as if it costs peanuts to put up one,” said Puckett.

Puckett said it is not that easy, cheap and fast to revise the articles of incorporation and apply the revision with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Our articles of incorporation have been with us since we started in the seventies,” he said.

The MVP-MA, which launched its version of electric jeepneys early this year, was hopeful that it could save the sector from collapse as a result of declining car sales and car ownership by investing their parts inventory into a completely new line of vehicle only to find itself in a bind like us, Puckett said.

Solarco has sold e-jeepney units to local governments like Makati (where it made a successful debut last year), Palawan, Baguio, Iloilo, Bacolod and Boracay (in Aklan).

It tested its first five units in the Eco Park (operated by the ABS-CBN Foundation) in Quezon City and is now being tested in the Ateneo de Manila Compound also in Quezon City; in Makati (which now bought two units), Bacolod (the original project recipient for 50 units under a Dutch grant) and Palawan.

Currently, many private subdivision villages of Metro Manila have ordered e-jeepneys for use inside the villages to shuttle residents and guests. Among them are the posh villages in Makati and Quezon City; Fort Bonifacio and Alabang). These villages will go ahead using these units with or without the plates anyway they can go around the private road of the village, he added.

 “People want to turn to e-jeepney for a lot of reasons among them to cut on fuel costs, increased earnings (for the jeepney operators and drivers) and to clean the air since electric vehicles do not emit noxious fumes like gasoline and diesel,” Puckett said.