I’ve been reading up on this today and oh boy it drops back onto that faithful foreign investment $280 Million USD being made available by the Asian Development Bank is no doubt the main driving force behind it but is the whole concept and idea of finding the E-Tricycle a waste of time? Is the DOE just turning wheels rather than expecting solutions that will work?
Well when you look into it there are already E-tricycles here and its not been the issue of a lack of ideas or ability but corruption that has halted progress if you take a look at http://www.electrictricycle.net/ you will see they came a long way with the development and its P30 a day charging rate per vehicle is extremely reasonable. I can’t find the cost of the vehicle but then again when Philippines customs is charging P85,000 for any individual parts coming into the Philippines (as well as only giving receipts for P20,000) the prices are obviously heavily influenced by corruption. Well more to the point the corruption is so bad its collapsed the project even after support from the local mayor and having President Aquino pop in for a quick photo.
This is why things don’t improve in the Philippines and throwing money at the problem is never a solution as I can guarantee the money will slowly drip away and the Philippines will still be stuck with its problems.
I know I sound negative on this but I had initially started looking around for existing designs of electric vehicles and to find that both the Philippines customs and LTO offices were hindering rather than helping has become a norm rather than an unexpected blight.
Question is why are people even looking for new solutions for the Electric tricycle when the solutions are obviously already here? Why is it foreign money wastes it time trying to invest in things that are destined to fail before they even start?
Anti-corruption should be the focus of everything in the Philippines as getting that under control will unlock the potential of everything else. Business, Green energy, exports, jobs,regeneration of areas are all hindered by corruption.
I will however finish this topic off on something very British and with all this money floating around for new inventions and electric vehicle solutions I do wonder why people are so blinkered to what is already out there as the saying goes the solution may be staring you in the face.
![[Photo of Gem Mk1, PJ54 DUV]](http://www.milkfloats.org.uk/gem1.jpg)
I am sure some may be wondering what it is your looking at but its an electric milk float and these have a life a life expectancy of over 30 years. In fact you will find even today some still running in the UK on original milk float routes delivering milk in the small hours that have been doing the job daily since the 1960s. More likely they have changed drivers more often than vehicles. Yes initially they are expensive but they seem to run forever. Isn’t it easier to adapt existing technology than invent something new? Wouldn’t this be easy to modify for use as jeepney’s around major cities? They need one charge for 8 hours running a day and for those thinking about the issue of power in the Philippines being unreliable there are solutions for that but like everything else it needs investment. Problem is as you can see above and if you click through on the customs overcharging of imported goods you will get to understand that this sort of thing needs to be a government initiative completely tax free.
![[Photo of CPV 287]](http://www.milkfloats.org.uk/cpv287-small.jpg)
The technology has been here a long time and just hasn’t been used to its full potential. This electric milk float is dated 1954! Photo credits for the milk floats go to www.milkfloats.org.uk
