Cubans increasingly adopt electric vehicles for transportation

Rather than diluting everything that was once exotic about Havana and its image of vintage cars cruising past beautiful old buildings, the electric scooters add a new dimension to the perception of the city and the outlook of transport challenges that Cubans need to address. Electric motorcycles are fixing a lot of issues in Cuba; they are utilised for nearly all the tasks. 

A Cuban hotel worker, Omar Cortina, who in recent past bought his first electric vehicle – a scooter with lithium battery, told Reuters that the streets of Cuba during his childhood up until the 1990s looked like those from the 1950s: roads in bad condition, lot of smoke from old cars, not a lot of vehicles on the road. On the contrary, the emergence of electric automobiles is going to be disruptive to the political structure of the communist nation. 

Figures from the Cuban government reveal that between 2020 and 2022, local firms manufactured above 23,000 electric cars. Continuing petrol shortages stemming from a steep price increase earlier this year means that the average Cuban may have to spend more than the state-set average monthly wage for a conventional 40 liter tank. Transportation has also been adversely affected with reduced number of buses in circulation within Havana and many of the ones available are cramped and in bad shape. Many of the routes outside the capital have been cut or even done away with completely due to lack of fuel and spare parts.

These challenges have boosted the demand for electric cars recorded with the advancement of new investors such as Caribbean Electric Vehicles (Vedca), a joint venture of the Chinese investor Tianjin Dongxing Industrial and Cuban State Bicycle Manufacturer Minerva. But in 1999 Vedca has manufactured over 2,000 scooters, bicycles, mini-trucks, etc by Cuban assembled with Chinese parts. “It is imperative that we shift our perspective now,” states Julio Oscar Perez, the director of Vedca. Electric cars are not a mere innovation for transportation needs but also for other issues that fuel constraints cause.

At Vedca’s manufacturing plant in Cuba’s outskirts, personnel build scooters and bikes, and even toy with electric tractors and other massive equipment. Other competitive local manufacturers are also available in the market and are involved in offering electric bikes to the market segments. At the same time, the Cuban government has recently allowed the importation of better brand new electrical models amongst which from the United States as Tesla brand models are steadily gaining traction among a newly emerging sort of a high earning revolutionised class in Cuba.

Nevertheless, for many, including Cortina, electric cars are still mainly an issue of utility as the basics such as battery charge have been articulated. He bursts into laughter, ‘Years later, all transport means will be electric,’ this vision is part of a shift towards environmentally friendly transport solutions in the emerging Cuban cities.