E-trike industry players expanding base in PH

by Myrna Velasco June 2, 2016 (updated)

http://www.mb.com.ph/e-trike-industry-players-expanding-base-in-ph/

The electric vehicles (EV) industry has been expanding its base in the Philippines, generally flourishing for now in the deployment of electric tricycles (e-trikes) as a mass transport system for Filipino commuters.

According to the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (EVAP), four new players with foreign origins have recently joined the league.

These are the Hong Kong-based Kyto Green Technologies, Kuwaiti firm PrimeGreen Power and Technology, Inc., SunEtrike that was founded by a Canadian national; and Singapore-based Clean Air Transport Solutions.

These companies, the group noted, have been gearing up to corner a pie of the estimated 1.2 million electric tricycles rollout potential for the country.

EVAP president Rommel T. Juan said “these new foreign EV players must have realized that a target of just 10 percent of the market or 120,000 regular tricycles for replacement by e-trikes would still be a substantial market over the next few years.”

The intended mass market rollout of e-trikes is a flagship project of the Aquino administration. But while it already bows out of office by month-end, its accomplishment on this sphere is relatively very marginal.

The e-trike deployment awarded by the Department of Energy (DOE) just took off at 3,000 units, not even reaching the initial target of 10,000 fleets.

Nevertheless, EV private sector ventures have been thriving in various parts of the country, hence, the industry is building on that momentum to tug its way into its higher goal of becoming the EV hub in Asia.

PrimeGreen in particular has rolled out e-trikes at the Clark industrial zone in Pampanga, which is so much aligned with the government’s agenda to turn that economic zone into a “green city.”

As noted by Wilson Varghese, president and chief executive officer of PrimeGreen, they have different EV models “to suit the different needs of the end-users.”

Juan further asserted “more and more foreign EV players are now entering the market, catalyzing our plan of becoming the EV hub of Asia.”

He noted their group has been continuously flexing muscles so they can entice more players into the EV sector, “not only to get foreign investments but also to gain more technical knowledge and uplift the standards of EVs in the country.”