As the adverse effects of global warming and climate change—such as more intense summer heat, rains, flooding, and change in seasons—makes its presence felt all over the world, our very own Local Government Units (LGUs) have heeded the call to enact laws and ordinances that help address the issue and lessen its impact. One of these is the use of clean energy vehicles, such as Electric Tricycles or ETrikes.
As the name suggests, ETrikes run on pure electricity and are much cleaner compared to their gasoline counterparts that have a rather archaic two-stroke motor. Not only are these trikes more environment-friendly, they likewise don’t labor as hard under a full load of four to five passengers—something that is way too much for a motorcycle designed specifically to carry two persons at most.
While this all sounds well and good, alas, only a few LGUs out of the 1,634 cities, towns, and municipalities scattered across the country have taken to this form of mass transport. Most notable are Muntinlupa, Coron, Boracary, and Bacoor in Cavite—all of which have begun using a fleet of ETrikes. These places have also given incentives to ETrike operators and drivers, such as expediting ETrike franchises, and exempting the payment of franchise fees for the first three to five years.
To boost its efforts, the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (EVAP) is pushing for more LGUs to bat for more ordinances and laws. Some of the creative solutions they propose are retail financing to help more operators and drivers avail of Etrikes from its members, aftersales service support, and battery charging and swapping. These are all part of the ETrike Program that the EVAP and its members have put together, which aims to push for more of these vehicles to be used in LGUs and the eventual phase out of the smokey and noisy gasoline tricycles.
With all these in place, it looks like the EVAP is on its way to a clean, electrified future. Let’s just hope our local officials see the green, environment-friendly light.
