The government is rolling out incentives to encourage more motorists to shift to electric vehicles (EVs) as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told the Department of Energy (DOE) and other government departments to find ways to roll out more EVs on the road.

At the sectoral meeting on Tuesday to discuss the updates on EV industry development, Marcos said the government wants 50 percent of automobiles on the roads to be EVs by 2040.

Hence, the Chief Executive held a meeting with DOE and other government officials on how to improve and grow the local EV sector.

“President Marcos has instructed the concerned agencies to work together to study the integration of the EV industry so that we can strengthen the local manufacturing of electric vehicles and supporting battery charging mechanisms,” said Palace briefer Daphne Oseña-Paez in a Palace Briefing.

Last October 2023, Marcos declared his intention to have at least half of the roads filled with electric vehicles in October 2023. The DOE announced months later that it is recalibrating its EV objective from 10 percent to 50 percent.

In the same briefing, DOE Usec. Felix Fuentebella said that there are only 7,000 EVs or 0.001 percent of the 14.30 million registered vehicles in the country.

While Fuentebella said there is still a long way to go, the government is eyeing a fleet approach.

“We are not only looking into the technology but the President also wants us to focus on achieving the numbers by looking at fleet or the group approach, looking at the consumer experience and identifying what stifles the financing,” Fuentebella said.

Incentives for EV motorists

He added that the government will impose incentives such as exemptions from some traffic laws, creating green lanes for EV users, and priority processing at transport offices to encourage more people to switch to electric vehicles.

Fuentebella added that potential incentives for EV users include the suspension of import tariffs and other fees.

“We’re also looking at a number of strategies or incentives,” Fuentebella said.

"We have priority registration at the LTO (Land Transportation Office) and priority processing of franchise to operate at the LTFRB (Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board), and we have an electric vehicle exempted from the vehicle reduction scheme or the number coding scheme," Fuentebella added.

Fuentebella said these suggested plans complies with the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act.

The aforementioned law, which promotes the use of electric vehicles (EVs) in the nation, was passed in 2022.