As he sees the entire city of Manila running electric cars soon, Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada is now looking to introduce electric jeepneys or E-jeepneys in the capital city.
Estrada said an E-jeepney, like the electric tricycles or E-trikes that the city started distributing to indigent tricycle and pedicab drivers last Wednesday, is better than the old gasoline-fed jeepneys simply because it does not consume expensive fuel, has no noise, no fumes, and no emissions.
“Yes, even E-jeepneys, eventually,” Estrada said during the formal launch of the E-trike livelihood project in Binondo, where he was asked by reporters if the city government is also considering e-jeepneys in the city.
Estrada gave away 50 E-trikes to the first batch of driver-beneficiaries.
“Even the jeepney drivers, they should have their own jeepneys. What happens is that during [jeepney] strikes, only leaders are the ones making money,” Estrada pointed out.
The Manila mayor said he sympathizes with the plight of the lowly jeepney drivers, whom he said are heavily burdened by ever increasing fuel prices, costs of spare parts, and other maintenance expenses, apart from the daily “boundary” they must pay to their operators that averages around P1,000 a day.
Should the planned e-jeepney project push through, Estrada said he will also implement the “drive-to-own” financing scheme like with the E-trikes, where the driver-recipient only should pay a boundary of P150 a day with zero interest.
About two years ago, an e-jeepney proponent, in cooperation with the transport group Pasang Masda, relaunched the Community Optimized Managed Electric Transport or COMET jeepneys that run on rechargeable batteries.
Each COMET has a global positioning system or GPS and screen that can monitor the passengers’ fare. It also has a closed-circuit camera and an LCD screen onboard.
“I’m seeing the whole of Manila running on electric vehicles,” Estrada said during Wednesday’s launch of the E-trike project, which was also attended by Takahiro Innami and Yvone De Castro, president and vice president for Marketing and Sales, respectively, of BEMAC Electric Transportation Philippines Inc.
Describing the project as an “honest-to-goodness livelihood program,” the mayor reiterated he is giving the poor drivers of tricycles and pedicabs an opportunity to increase their income and become operators themselves in two to four years.
Per Manila Traffic and Parking Bureau chief Dennis Alcoreza, the E-Trikes will have exclusively franchised routes so as not to compete with fuel-run tricycles. Fare is set at P20 per person.
With the cost of battery recharging already subsidized by the city government, Alcoreza pointed out the E-trike driver-owner will only have to shoulder the day-to-day maintenance of the vehicle such as tires and brake pads.
“The ordinary wear-and-tear expenses will be shouldered by the driver — the tires, brake pads, those are the usual ones that wear out,” he explained.
The rechargeable batteries of the E-trikes, Alcoreza added, have a four-year warranty.
The city government bought 280 units of E-trikes, at P400,000 each, from BEMAC for distribution this year.
The Manila Electric Co., on the other hand, has constructed several charging stations, the first one in Binondo.
BEMAC is the first electric vehicle company with a full assembly line in the country. With a technology certified by the Ministry of Land Transport in Japan, its plant at Carmona, Cavite can produce between 3,000 to 10,000 vehicles.
De Castro said they will soon be rolling out more fleets of E-trikes for the city of Manila.
BEMAC’s E-trikes run on batteries than can be fully charged for only five hours, and are fail-safe and fool-proof. It can carry up to six passengers and has a maximum speed of 45 kilometers per hour.