Electric roll call

We should be positively stoked about the state of our EV market

PARDON THE PUN, but it’s almost shocking when you realize that there are now more pure electric vehicles on the market than there are pickups and vans combined.

And you know how crazy Filipinos are about pickups and vans.

Just three years ago, electric vehicles were more a curiosity than a legitimate alternative to an ICE (internal combustion engine) car. The choices then were pretty much the Nissan Leaf (which retailed for just under P2.8 million) and the Porsche Taycan (well, if you need to ask the price…).

Fast-forward a mere three years and, thanks to the EVIDA Law that granted tax breaks to electrified cars, the Nissan Leaf is now just under P1.9 million (a whopping P900,000 price drop) while the Porsche Taycan has been joined by pure EVs from Audi, Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz — plus a dozen other mainstream brands. You can now bring home a pure EV for under P700,000.

CHALLENGES

Of course, the principal issue pertaining to EV ownership — range anxiety — is still there. And while many electric vehicles have impressively long driving range (a fair number can exceed 400 kilometers on a full charge), it is still the severe lack of charging stations that give car buyers pause.

Yes, you can drive a fully charged EV every day for a week for your home-office commute and need to charge it only by the weekend, but people who buy cars would prefer that it be able to take them to a round of golf in Laguna on a whim (without having to calculate if they can make it back) or go on a drive to Baguio and not have to worry about finding an AC outlet as soon as they arrive.

Yes, there is a growing number of charging stations in the malls, but the two or three charging stations in each mall are proving inadequate to charge the fast-growing number of EVs and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).