July awarding seen for e-trike contract — DoE
THE GOVERNMENT hopes to award the contract for the first 3,000 electric tricycles by July, an official from the Department of Energy (DoE) said.
The electric tricycle (e-trike) project — a joint undertaking of the agency and the Asian Development Bank ( ADB) — aims to replace some 100,000 gasolinepowered tricycles by 2017.
Undersecretary Donato D. Marcos said in a phone interview on Thursday that the bid submission deadline for the contract remains unchanged.
“We’re not extending the opening of bids on May 6. We believe that we have given the prospective bidders enough time to prepare their submissions,” said Mr. Marcos.
The e-trike project, financed largely with development money and government funds, is a milestone on the way towards widespread use of electric vehicles. Private initiatives are also spreading with more banks supporting the industry by providing purchase financing to support vehicle sales.
The Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (EVAP) said on Sunday that Luzon Development Bank became the third financial institution to offer financing for end-users, following the lead of the Development Bank of the Philippines ( DBP) and mobile-based micro-finance lender BPI Globe BanKO Inc.
“(Luzon Development Bank) expressed their intent to open a financing scheme available to EVAP members, which we can guarantee in case the buyer defaults,” EVAP President Rommel T. Juan said in a phone interview.
EVAP, which is composed of 10 vehicle manufacturers and 40 suppliers, projects sales growth for electric vehicles of 49% this year, with a longer-term target of one million units on the road by 2020.
The Energy department’s Mr. Marcos noted that the e- trike auction will be conducted via a two-envelope process. Wednesday will see the opening of the first envelope, which contains technical proposals.
Mr. Marcos said the submissions will be subject to a two-week evaluation process, after which the Energy department will forward the qualified bidders to the ADB
The ADB, then, will issue a no objection letter (NOL), after which, the opening of the second envelope — containing the financial proposals — will follow.
“There will also be another evaluation for the financial bids and again, we will forward the results to ADB for another NOL,” Mr. Marcos said.
“Upon completion, we will announce the winning bidders and issue the notice to proceed. We’re looking to award the contract by July, assuming everything goes as planned,” he added. —