“I say the prospects are bright for EVs in the Philippines because the market says we are ready for them.”
Those of us who grew up in the ‘80s—don’t be shy, raise your hand, it was an awesome decade!—might remember a hit song back then whose lines went something like, ‘I’m doin’ all right, gettin’ good grades, the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades!’. You can Spotify the song anytime, it’s a pop relic amazingly well-preserved and still enjoyable.
And yet as this sunshine-y song pops in my head as I ponder the bright prospects of electric vehicles in the Philippines, it’s also tinged with legitimate concern that only serves to confirm my belief in the inevitability of the widespread use of EVs in the not-too-far future: we are experiencing a heat wave right now and it’s gotten far too dangerous.
In the past couple of weeks, The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) had issued warnings that the heat index in some places in the country could reach danger levels—that means the possibility of heat cramps, heat exhaustion and even heat stroke with prolonged exposure.
Many areas all over the country, including Metro Manila, have registered a searing 42°C. It feels like a switch in the planet’s internal oven has been set to high. I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not.
The heat we’re experiencing has gotten to such an extreme that on-site classes in many LGUs have had to be suspended. It used to be that classes would be canceled because of heavy rain; now we cancel classes because of extreme heat.
That is just not right.
The cause of all this should be obvious enough: Climate change. If anyone still thinks of climate change as an abstraction (believe me, many denialists still do), then it shouldn’t be now—the effects are much too palpable.
According to global experts, a major contributor to climate change is CO2 emissions. Our country’s Climate Change Commission says that 36 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from transport—fumes coming out of our vehicles currently using non-renewable fossil fuel.
The Philippines is committed to the Paris Agreement, a UN-led global pact to tackle climate change and its negative impacts. One of the goals of the Agreement: to substantially reduce global gas emissions to hold global temperature increase.
Therefore, as we face the possibility of more heat waves in the future—which, in fact, will almost always be followed by a season of torrential (we pray not catastrophic) rains, as is the nature of the El Niño/La Niña phenomena—it only makes sense for us to pursue efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change. In the transportation industry, that means embracing technologies where the net effect is zero emissions.
Enter the electric vehicle or simply EV.
These days we now know the difference between EVs and another transportation technology designed for sustainability: The hybrid. Simply put, the hybrid is a vehicle that runs on both electric and conventional fuel combustion engine; the EV runs on pure electricity. As you may correctly conclude, the former will still have CO2 emissions; the latter has zero.
I say the prospects are bright for EVs in the Philippines because the market says we are ready for them. You can already see e-scooters and e-trikes steadily filling up our streets, their general utility already present in the public’s consciousness.
But more than that, the car market has gotten in on the action as well. It’s a big boost that the government has led the adoption of EVs in the country by exempting EVs from paying excise taxes and the number coding scheme. Now new car manufacturers are selling a whole range of models that are smarter, more sustainable, and I should say exciting, too. One manufacturer even offers a cute car named after a frozen treat, priced just a little over half a million pesos. I’ve seen quite a few in the streets, and it only shows that electric cars are now within the budget and aspirations of every Pinoy.
Of course, there are practical considerations to owning an electric car. Here’s one: say, you live on the higher floors of a condo. How do you plug your car to charge its batteries if there are no provisions for electrical outlets in your parking space? You can’t possibly dangle an extension cord down from the window of your 15th floor unit, can you?
I recently joined the SM Group and am delighted that we have been synergizing and integrating sustainability into the very core of our businesses. An example is how we are providing customers charging stations in 50 participating SM malls nationwide (as of this writing).
Range anxiety and where to charge the EV are exactly the kind of problems that customer face and worry about. And because the malls are the go-to places of the Pinoy family, we thought of providing a convenient solution.
We’ve placed them strategically that even a trip, say, to Baguio and back is possible because you can make stops at SM malls along the way to charge. As a bonus, various dining and shopping options are at the customer’s disposal while charging their EVs.
If and when I get my own EV, I’ll drive up to one of these stations, plug in, pop some music and wear my shades—because we’re all doing our part to make the future bright.
The author is the vice president and head of corporate communications for SM Investment Corp.
Manila Standard’s Biodiversity 101 column is open to contributors who share the advocacies of protecting the environment and promoting sustainable practices that are being pushed by the United Nations. Such contributions are subject to the availability of space and the paper’s editorial policies. The contributions should not exceed 600 words or 4,000 characters.