Electric cars in the Philippines

It’s shameful I only got to know this now, three years after the fact, that there was already an invented electric car in the Philippines.

Aware of the posing threat of lung cancer whenever I commute, I had often thought of eco-friendly means for public and private vehicles to serve their purpose without emitting smoke for functionality.

The Eagle G-car indicated in the video above looks weird in design and is made in fiber glass. It is said this compact, electric vehicle depicts that of the Philippine Eagle. It has an operational 80km and a speed of 60hm/h per charge. Charging is said to be approximately .95 cents and would take 4-8 hours to charge. Estimated price (well at least during 2007) was from Php 140,000 to Php 280,000.

I also found a short similar discussion on a Hybrid (gas-electric) car invented by a Filipino engineer. It is super sub-compact and with removable top/roof. The problem was, the government couldn’t support his invention. That really sucks.

But I think that shouldn’t stop the inventor to make his invention a commercial reality just because the government couldn’t support him. The country already has too many debts and is known for its un-supportive attitude to local inventors.

Though I may think the Hybrid car inventor may have felt frustrated on possibly having his invention commercialized by foreign investors and loose its ‘Pinoy’ essence. We Filipinos are very talented people, but often from lack of support from local government, our amazing products, resources, talents, etc. are shipped of and used or made in other countries bearing another brand or name.

If the Hybrid car inventor is seriously thinking of having his invention created, his hope would be to have his work patented then talk to big companies and foreign investors fund his work.

As of this moment, I’ve read Hybrid cars unveiled by Honda, Mitsubishi and Honda. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to see or hear much of this vehicles and obviously, all I still can see on the roads are the usual smoke-belching vehicles.

Will the smokes ever stop? *cough*