Cebu City to buy e-buses

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu City government is planning to acquire electric-powered buses or e-buses to replace the government fleet of green buses to save on fuel subsidies and limit carbon footprints.

Acting Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia said he aims to replace at least 10-percent of the city-owned vehicles with electric. He explained that buying electric vehicles can be advantageous to the environment as it reduces carbon footprints and at the same time save on fuel expenses.

According to him, the city government is spending at least P10 million to P15 million per month on fuel. Acquiring e-buses is expected to bring down the cost on fuel expenses thus saving money for the city government.

Garcia also brought up the idea of phasing out the green tourist buses of the city as soon as the e-buses are available. Another option is for these green tourist buses to be utilized as backup while the e-buses are being tested for efficiency. Once tested, the government can put up the green buses for sale.

"It can be in an arrangement wherein, moabang ta nila para ang maintenance, ilaha na tanan, we just have to pay them a service fee," said Garcia.

"I think it is a better way in reducing the cost of fuel," he added during an interview with reporters on Monday.

Garcia said these electric buses will no longer be powered with fuels and will be purely based on battery, once drained it can recharged through electricity. Garcia said that this bus can run up to 200 kilometers in one full charge.

As for the funding allocation, Garcia said the acquisition of these electric buses already has appropriation from this year's annual budget under the Department of General Services.

With this, Garcia said they would have to study the exact computation of how much the city can save in comparison to one green bus in the city. — (FREEMAN)