"Philippines urged to try electric vehicles"

**uls** · March 9th, 2012 11:03 AM

pwede when electric car pricing doesnt include the battery and you pay a separate fee to join a "battery club" owned by a battery supplier/suppliers. that way you don't OWN the battery you just pay for the power so you wouldnt have issues re swapping your brand new battery for someone else's 2 yr old battery

the "battery club" gotta have locations all over the place

**uls** · March 9th, 2012 11:12 AM

but whatever...

electric cars are stupid. only treehuggers think they're great

gawa nalang sila ng kalye na may naka-embed na electric lines. that will eliminate the need for onboard batteries

**ghosthunter** · March 9th, 2012 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by uls

pwede when electric car pricing doesnt include the battery and you pay a separate fee to join a "battery club" owned by a battery supplier/suppliers. that way you don't OWN the battery you just pay for the power so you wouldnt have issues re swapping your brand new battery for someone else's 2 yr old battery

the "battery club" gotta have locations all over the place

... the same chicken or egg problem. Which comes first to make EVs affordable?

**uls** · March 9th, 2012 11:21 AM

but treehuggers will say you gotta start somewhere

if not now, when?

if you don't start now, it's never gonna move forward

oh well... this is what happens when something is driven by ideology

**niky** · March 9th, 2012 11:26 AM

The manufacturers have to show something viable first.

Then present a business model that will entice the "filling station" owners. Say... not even the filling station owners own the batteries. They also lease them form the manufacturers (first) and they collect their fees merely off of the electric content of the batteries, whereas the manufacturer collects the surcharge that goes towards replacing batteries.

Then present to the public this new form of PUV or even customer vehicle that now costs less than a car to both buy and run.

Wait for the inevitable gas price spike... then get customers... like the LPG businesses did.

Obviously, it's more difficult. With LPG, customers were simply extending the usable life of vehicles they already had... namely gasoline taxis. This will be an upfront investment, which operators will not be willing to take alone. But with tax incentives and perhaps a little prodding from the government (outlawing all diesel vehicles that fail to meet an emissions standard... quite easy to fail thousands of smoke belching jeepneys this way), you give them no choice but to either buy a jeepney with a new diesel motor (nearly a million pesos) or to buy a tax-free EV with no battery costs included (around 400k).

It would be extremely difficult, but doable.

**ghosthunter** · March 9th, 2012 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by niky

The manufacturers have to show something viable first.

Then present a business model that will entice the "filling station" owners. Say... not even the filling station owners own the batteries. They also lease them form the manufacturers (first) and they collect their fees merely off of the electric content of the batteries, whereas the manufacturer collects the surcharge that goes towards replacing batteries.

Then present to the public this new form of PUV or even customer vehicle that now costs less than a car to both buy and run.

Wait for the inevitable gas price spike... then get customers... like the LPG businesses did.

Obviously, it's more difficult. With LPG, customers were simply extending the usable life of vehicles they already had... namely gasoline taxis. This will be an upfront investment, which operators will not be willing to take alone. But with tax incentives and perhaps a little prodding from the government (outlawing all diesel vehicles that fail to meet an emissions standard... quite easy to fail thousands of smoke belching jeepneys this way), you give them no choice but to either buy a jeepney with a new diesel motor (nearly a million pesos) or to buy a tax-free EV with no battery costs included (around 400k).

It would be extremely difficult, but doable.

The Auto-LPG model was easier.

It started with taxi cab companies want to save cost on fuel by converting their vehicles to LPG. The fuel source solution was to have their own supply of LPG at their garage. No need to have an established network of Auto-LPG stations around the city.

Later, stand-alone Auto-LPG filling stations as well as regular gasoline stations with LPG pumps started to pop-up around the metro to serve the increasing number of taxi cabs running on LPG. This part also solved the problem of private cars upgraded with Auto-LPG kits.

A simple supply and demand model.

It is doubtful if you can do the same for EVs where there is absolutely no demand (beyond a few greenies with political agendas).

**niky** · March 9th, 2012 02:13 PM

In the same vein, if you could convince one operator to buy a number of jeeps and batteries...

But then again, due to the very low margins you get from jeeps versus taxis (because taxis are "luxury" public transport), that might be an uphill battle.

**ghosthunter** · March 9th, 2012 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by niky

In the same vein, if you could convince one operator to buy a number of jeeps and batteries...

But then again, due to the very low margins you get from jeeps versus taxis (because taxis are "luxury" public transport), that might be an uphill battle.

Auto-LPG kits were very cheap at under P20K for the carb versions when Auto-LPG started in Metro Manila.

A battery pack for the e-jeepney is potentially between P60,000 to P100,000 each with a limited cycle life of an estimated 500 cycles before replacement is required. "Uphill battle" doesn't even begin to describe the financing issues you would have trying to sell this idea to jeepney operators.

**niky** · March 9th, 2012 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by ghosthunter

Auto-LPG kits were very cheap at under P20K for the carb versions when Auto-LPG started in Metro Manila.

A battery pack for the e-jeepney is potentially between P60,000 to P100,000 each with a limited cycle life of an estimated 500 cycles before replacement is required. "Uphill battle" doesn't even begin to describe the financing issues you would have trying to sell this idea to jeepney operators.

About 50k for the current battery pack.

What's more uphill than uphill? Vertical?

**ghosthunter** · March 9th, 2012 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by niky

About 50k for the current battery pack.

P50,000 per battery pack. With the need to have TWO packs for each vehicle to ensure minimal downtime for the e-jeepney to offset the limited range (50 to 60 km per full charge). The battery packs required 8 hour recharging time.