Electric Tricycles a Multiyear Project to Reduce the Air Pollution in Philippines

The Philippines government wants to replace millions of petrol-powered tricycles with electric tricycles in the effort of less polluting mass transport system said president Benigno Aquino.

Initially will be replaced 20,000 tricycles in Manila and the project will be expanded throughout the country.

Through these electric tricycles the country will save ten millions of dollars annually. President Aquino said that: “The project is an ambitious multi-year plan to wean public utility vehicles from the use of gasoline and diesel and to encourage them to shift to alternatives like natural gas, electricity and hybrid engines,” and he said. “I would like to see the day when nearly all public utility vehicles… run on alternative fuel, freeing the public transport sector and commuters from the threat of unreasonably high oil prices and unhealthy levels of air pollution.”

The initial stage of the project was to launch this week 20 electric tricycles to hit the streets of Manila suburb. According to Manila Asian Development Bank (ADB) who funds this first stage of the project, the transport sector emissions are about 30 percent of all pollution in Philippines. Only in Manila, the vehicle emission account is more than 80 percent of all pollution. “A sizeable proportion of vehicle emissions are attributable to inefficient public transport, particularly from tricycles, jeepneys and buses,” they added.

Sohail Hasnie, an energy specialist at Manila ADB said that in Philippines operate more than 3.5 million tricycles which emitted more than 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and burned nearly 5 billion dollars of fuel yearly. “Every 20,000 electric tricycles  that are introduced to Manila’s streets will save the Philippines 100,000 litres of foreign fuel imports each day, saving the country about 35 million dollars annually,” Hasnie said.

Though the electric tricycles, which use rechargeable lithium ion batteries, are costlier, older petrol tricycles are more than twice as expensive to operate in the long run, Hasnie added. The carbon footprints of the electric tricycles, which are locally produced, would be less than a quarter of conventional tricycles, the ADB said.