Makaticondo

Makati Village want Electric Jeepneys

Chesca de la Cruz

Since the introduction last July of the quiet and pollution-free electric jeepneys in exclusive residential villages Makati have placed their orders for these units to ferry residents and their staff around the private subdivision roads.

Already, Bel Air and Forbes Park in Makati have ordered units for immediate use in their private roads and Ayala Group, which operates other medium and upscale villages in the country and Fort Bonifacio of Metro Pacific have also discussed buying these units for their exclusive subdivisions.

The exclusive importer and distributor of these electric jeepneys is Solar Electric Co. (Solarco), owned by Robert Lopez Puckett, who designed the jeepneys with his engineers and entered into exclusive manufacturing contract with a China-based factory.

Even the local governments of Palawan, San Fernando in La Union, other provinces in Negros and Baguio are aggressively pursuing the ejeepneys for their roads in compliance with the Clean Air Act.

The innovator of electric vehicle and railway—Meralco (previously known as Manila Electric and Railway Company) wants to use the electric jeepney for its Meralco Management Leadership Development Center (MMLDC) in Antipolo and for its service fleet of repair and maintenance crews and installation group, said Puckett.

The electric jeepneys were launched July 4 simultaneously in Makati and La Mesa Ecopark in Quezon City and in Bacolod City by the consortium of GRIPP (or the Green Renewable Independent Power Producers) comprising of Greenpeace Philippines, Solarco, DOEN Foundation of the Netherlands (which funded the 400,000 Euro ejeepney project of Bacolod City for 50 units) and several other NGOs.

What is keeping Solarco from accepting orders for ejeepneys and placing volume orders with the Chinese factory is the delay in the release of license and registration plates by the Department of Transportation and Communication and the Land Transport Office.

"I do not want to order big volumes from China only to be kept in the warehouses at Customs because LTO and DoTC have not yet released the plates for these units," Puckett said.

The ejeepneys continue to attract global media attention--- especially so during its July launch where the Philippines landed the front pages and long tv mileages from major dailies and networks around the world. To this day, Puckett continues to be interviewed by foreign media syndicates.

Even Chinese distributors based in China are interested to place big volumes of orders for use in their respective roads. They are talking to Puckett since he has the exclusive marketing agreement with the Chinese factory.

The government of China is eager to adopt the ejeepney technology to save its billions of people from environmental pollution brought about by burning fossil fuel for motor vehicles. Another reason is the continued price escalation of Middle Eastern fuel.

Why not, Puckett asked. "With oil now at $ 100 per barrel and there is a forecast that it would reach 0 by end of 2008, which country would not want to explore other cheaper energy sources and vehicles using alternative energy systems.

The electric jeepneys introduced last July include a purely rechargeable electric vehicle and a combination of electric and solar-backed jeepney. The solar panels can run during the day and the electric at night.

From these modules, GRIPP intends to eventually use electricity from solid waste and even farm wastes in collaboration with Philbio.

"There are limitless possibilities. But with LTO and DOTC not acting fast, the Philippines might be overrun by China in commercializing electric jeepneys," Puckett lamented.