“We envision a future where vehicles like the IONIQ and KONA are attractive and sustainable options for every vehicle owner”. This was the message that Hyundai Asia Resources Inc President and CEO Ma. Fe Perez-Agudo gave during the recently held 7th Philippine Electric Vehicle Summit.
Staged at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City, the event was a gathering of various players and stakeholders in the country’s and region’s growing electric vehicle segment. Organized by the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines, it brought together new hybrid and fully electric vehicles, as well as different technologies that would make electrification and alternative propulsion a mainstream reality.
HARI, for its part, showed off the IONIQ hybrid and KONA fully electric SUV. The latter is the country’s very first electric subcompact SUV, mixing the en vogue vehicle type with zero emissions propulsion. And the good news is, both these vehicles are readily available at HARI’s nationwide dealer network.
Yet despite the high hopes, Perez-Agudo notes that the Philippines has quite a way to go before it can achieve an electric future. It needs to hurdle a few challenges, such as the government needing to come up with a roadmap that will plot the course of how we will get to our electrified destination. Government must likewise identify areas in the country where EVs can impact the most. This way, they can set up pilot test zones to see how effective this form of transportation would be. And maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put in place incentives that would encourage the manufacture of EV batteries and charging infrastructure in the country. This way, it would help bring the prices down and ensure would-be owners that they won’t be left orphaned when their batteries go dead in the coming years.
If all these come into fruition, we can see a future where EVs would become the norm rather than the exception. Mission accomplished.
