Caribbean Beat — January/February 2017 (#143)

which makes EVs one of the cleanest
forms of transport. No more changing
of gears, either. With electricity comes
acceleration, and it’s instant, smooth, and
exhilarating.
Some people have “range anxiety,”
and worry about running out of battery
power before reaching their destination
— but the drive range of an average
EV is approximately one hundred miles
on a single charge. Given the average
mileage on daily commutes and the size
of most Caribbean islands, a full charge
may last up to three days. It also costs
less to recharge than to fill up at the gas
pump, and the added value is that there’s
little maintenance cost over the lifetime
of the vehicle — the only servicing these
vehicles need is tyre alignment, changing
the wipers, and new batteries every
six to eight years. Some Caribbean
drivers have already become early
adopters of these cars, and it’s
possible they won’t even check
their rear-view mirrors to see what
the old internal combustion engine
vehicle is up to.
In 2009, Cayman Automotive
pioneered the presence of EVs in
the Caribbean. They also fostered
EV rentals as a tourism product in
the Cayman Islands. From there, the rest
of the Caribbean gradually took interest,
thus leading to the first-ever Caribbean
International Electric Auto show in 2012,
hosted in Cayman. Almost like passing
the baton in a relay, other islands began
running with the idea, researching and
putting measures in place to introduce
these vehicles. Today you’ll also
find EVs in Aruba, Trinidad, Grenada,
St Vincent, Montserrat, Cuba, Bermuda,
St Lucia, Guyana, and the Bahamas. And
currently leading the way, with over 160
privately owned EVs, is Barbados. At
the 2015 Caricom energy conference, it
was announced that Barbados is ranked
sixth in the world in percentage of EVs
relative to total vehicles in the country.
Barbados is just 166 square miles,
hence making an encounter with an EV,
or one of the thirty-nine available charging
stations, almost inevitable. Joanna
Edghill, managing director of Megapower,
believes Barbados and the islands
of the OECS don’t have an argument for
Electric vehicles seem ideal
for the Caribbean, due to the
size of our islands and our
abundant renewable energy
resources, like sunlight
hybrid vehicles — a cross between an EV
and a gas-fuelled vehicle — like larger
countries. Megapower is Barbados’s only
specialist EV garage, and is considered
an infrastructure expert, over and above
EVs — especially with their advanced
solar carports. Their concept is to offset
the charging of EVs with renewable
energy: the net effect is to pump sufficient
solar power into the grid to offset pulling
electricity from it. The solar energy generated
using this method can reduce your
electricity bill or reward you with credits.
Grenada Electricity Services Ltd
(Grenlec), in partnership with Megapower
and supported by the Grenada government,
embarked on an EV pilot project in
September 2015, to obtain relevant data
on the use of EVs in their local environment.
Preliminary data show savings
of fifty per cent of the cost of gas. And
although the power plant that generates
electricity does produce emissions, EVs
operate at a much higher efficiency, and
therefore produce fewer pollutants than
gas-powered vehicles.
Towards the shift to sustainable
transport, other governments are
actively encouraging EVs as a
viable option, either waiving the import
duty and VAT, or reducing motor vehicle
taxes. According to Edghill, the Barbados
government has even purchased two
Nissan Leaf EVs as part of a pilot
project. Five years after its introduction,
the Leaf became the world’s bestselling
pure EV by surpassing two hundred
thousand vehicles in December 2015. In
Barbados, the cost of a brand new Leaf
ranges from US$30,000 to US$33,000.
On the other side of the track, Trinidad
and Tobago may be a “backmarker” with
EVs, thanks to subsidised gas. T&T’s
National Gas Company also recently
invested TT$150 million in compressed
natural gas (CNG) infrastructure: the construction
of CNG stations, the conversion
of vehicles to CNG, and public education
and marketing. With over eight hundred
thousand licensed vehicles on Trinidad
and Tobago’s roads, approximately four
thousand are CNG vehicles — including
thirty-five buses owned by the Public
Transport Service Corporation. So EVs
may be not be a high priority on the T&T
government’s agenda at the moment —
but the Trinidad-based company Smart
Energy believes that CNG vehicles will
soon be surpassed by EVs.
Smart Energy CEO Ian Smart is
adamant that renewable technology is the
way of the future. His company launched
EVs in Trinidad by introducing
the Tesla. Costing upwards of
US$100,000, these are sleek, highend,
luxurious EVs with advanced
features like auto-pilot, automatic
software updates, and other innovative
technology. “I’m not sure
the world fully recognised what
Tesla meant when they said their
cars are full robots that can drive
themselves,” says Kurt Valley, a
sales executive at Smart Energy.
He compared this world-changing development
to when the Internet was first
designed and people didn’t know what it
could lead to.
At present, EVs are making a parade
lap, as people become more aware of
their environmental benefits. Since the
Paris Agreement on climate change has
become international law — putting caps
on global emissions and establishing
guidelines for international collaboration
— it’s probable there’ll soon be a greater
demand for EVs. Here in the Caribbean,
Caricom continues to develop policies
for sustainable transport. And with
government support — and perhaps the
incorporation of EVs as public service
vehicles — there’s a strong chance that
within the next decade these vehicles will
be widespread in our region, gradually
pushing old-fashioned internal combustion
vehicles to the back of the lot. It
certainly seems like EVs are in the fast
lane, driving towards a brighter, cleaner
future. n
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