Las Tunas and Sancti Spíritus develop new lines of electric vehicles, despite blackouts
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus 10 March 2025 — The transportation disaster is a glaring reality for any Cuban and even the official press does not bother to hide it with euphemisms. A note published in Periódico26 this Monday reports it from the first paragraph : “A total of 11 routes must move through the main municipality of Las Tunas, but this reality is far from the truth because due to the high fuel deficit only three to four of them can be covered, a number that does not satisfy the transportation needs of the population.”
Although the brief text reports the availability of electric tricycles (or eco-taxis) and coco-taxis, it does not hide the fact that this solution is only palliative. The provincial delegate for Transport, Reynaldo Reyes Silva, told the official newspaper that there are about 22,000 people who have to move around Las Tunas every day and that the vehicles available for this, including the “alternative means” that he praises in the interview, are insufficient.
“These vehicles transport around 3,000 people throughout the city,” explains the official, who then details the “biggest limitation” related to “the allocation of fuel for internal combustion vehicles (cocotaxis), which reduces the number of journeys.”
“Even the design has been improved, because at first it was a bit rough”
The hope centers on “the 20 electric tricycles that are in operation and can move 1,800 to 2,000 inhabitants,” that is, less than a tenth of the population of Las Tunas.
And so, he says, they will combine the eco-taxis and coco-taxis routes in a new four-vehicle bus station that will leave from the Mártires de Las Tunas pediatric hospital and, although it will serve the entire population, “its priority will be to transport medical discharges from the health center.”
The perpetual fuel shortage is one of the reasons why the island has opted in recent years for the creation of electric transport, but wherever it has been implemented, at least for now, it is insufficient. Last January, in Sancti Spíritus they boasted of having launched new electric vehicles, manufactured in the same province, which “reported revenues of more than one million pesos and transported more than 70,000 passengers within the main city.”
However, of the 50 planned “ecomobiles” only 21 were finished, and of these, only 5 were working, precisely because of the lack of energy, since they depend on the electrical grid to recharge their batteries. For several months, the province has been among those with the most hours of blackouts.
The people of Sancti Spiritus celebrate the efficiency and price of these electric cars, which have been in service in the province for more than a year. “They have even improved the design, because at first it was a bit rough,” Miguel, a resident of the city, tells this newspaper. He knows from a reliable source that they are using Chinese parts “imported by the military at a very cheap price.”
Hope is centered on “the 20 electric tricycles that are in operation and can move 1,800 to 2,000 residents”
Miguel insists that, as the authorities say, “the service is working well: it only costs 10 pesos and you never have to wait at the stop for more than 15 minutes.”
Another expert explains his “but”: “The problem is the batteries and the method of charging the vans. Where they are being stored there are not enough charging ports.” And he predicts: “The 10 pesos that it costs are not enough to maintain the cost of the service. All of that comes from China and China has to be paid.”
It is not surprising, however, that officialdom is promoting new routes for this type of transport and it is rare to see the vehicles. In Havana, for example, on routes such as Playa, tricycles are “almost ghosts.”
The first Ecotaxis route was inaugurated in the capital in 2020, as a project funded primarily by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to “promote the empowerment of women,” which is why all the drivers hired for it then were women.
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