Electric Vehicle Ignorance In Davao

Ahh: Fear and ignorance. The only tool some people possess to maintain their position and profit.

Businessman William Lima has created a line of vehicles that use electricity instead of fossil fuel to move forward. He has both four-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles, and in December last year he started manufacturing three-wheel drive tricycles powered by electricity. ...

The technology has helped a lot of trisikad and tricycle drivers. A "sikad" driver who earns P100 a day can earn P300 to P400 a day using an electric tricycle.

Last April 16, however, the city government banned the electric tricycles. "They decided to ban my tricycles for the thought that they might electrocute the passengers since they use electricity as power," he said.

I'll put it at about a 50% chance that the city government in Davao was actually stupid enough to think that vehicles powered by car batteries (suddenly after 50 years of service) pose an electrocution threat... and a 50% chance that they did it because somebody who was going to have their gasoline-burning-vehicle business get pummeled by a better product complained about it.

Mr. Lima's fleet of electric tri-wheeled taxis are still sitting in storage, banned from the streets of Davao. What a shame.

This is a great little "mini-example" of why The Philippines is so far behind today in relation to the rest of the developed world in terms of wealth and industry, development and progress: Hegemony and ignorance have suzerainty over progress and innovation... especially when it occurs at the grassroots level.

Instead of a new company growing in Davao that might someday employ thousands of people, shipping millions of low-cost electric vehicles to China and India... instead of a new company churning out a product that helps thousands of poor Filipino trike drivers triple their income... instead of a new company working to make Davao a cleaner, quieter, greener, more desirable place to live... the Davao government has shut that company down in its infancy... either because they are too dumb and lazy to do a Google search about the safety of electric vehicles, or because some other Davao business person with a little clout at city hall is too dumb and lazy to upgrade his own product to compete with Mr. Lima's electric alternative.

Filipinos, you do this to yourselves.