There are 200 vehicles in the assembly phase and another 300 “that should be received this year,” according to the Minister of Transportation
14ymedio, Havana, 24 April 2024 — The Cuban Government has made the circulation of electric tricycles on the Island a matter of State. Assembled in Cuba with imported parts, 183 vehicles of that class circulate in the country, according to the Minister of Transportation. However, in the many articles that it has dedicated to the subject, the official press avoids saying where they are brought from and who pays the 7,000 dollars that each one costs: the Chinese company Minghong and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The association of both institutions with the Narciso López Roselló Equipment and Applications company – a branch of the Sidero Mecánica Industry group – has been active since 2018 and its results have been modest, but this year, its directors insist, manufacturing its own tricycles is a priority, although the conditions do not seem to have changed.
The State newspaper Granma, which interviewed the director of the company, Luis Madrigal, did not want to put its hands in the fire for Narciso López Roselló and titled its article with a hint of doubt: Electric tricycles, made in Cuba? The negative answer was given by the Minister of Transportation, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, who in Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s program assured that there were 200 vehicles in the assembly phase and another 300 “that should be received this year.”
Those 500 tricycles in the project, which Transportation intends to “distribute” throughout the provinces, will continue to be a product assembled in the country with foreign parts. Madrigal, however, assures that there is a “commitment” from the Government to the in-house manufacturing of “chassis, cabins and metal structures.”
However, the most important things are missing: the batteries, the electrical system and the motors
However, the most important things are missing: the batteries, the electrical system, and the motors, which will continue to depend on Minghong and the UNDP. The company is not even at its maximum capacity, admitted Madrigal, who said that in its good times Narciso López was able to assemble up to 1,000 vehicles. However, they do not have workers and it is affected by “the current conditions,” he lamented.
According to the manager, there are four models of electric tricycles that are assembled in Cuba, and which are covered in the factory plan: the Aries Power, which has been circulating on Cuban streets for five years; the Aries XL, cargo; the C1, smaller; and the vans, whose “box” – the space for passengers – is manufactured on the Island.
During the recent Transportation and Logistics Fair, the company “signed an extension of the contract with the supplier” to continue sending tricycles from China, says Granma. These are the 300 vehicles that the minister spoke about. The problem, the Communist Party newspaper clarifies, is that the provinces will receive them only “to the extent that financing is available for their assembly.”
In his conversation with Díaz-Canel, the Minister of Transportation also alluded to the possibility of circulating three electric buses. The “invention,” however, has not taken off for months, despite the fact that its design and management are under the Armed Forces in Sancti Spíritus.
The “dream” of electric buses and tricycles has an obvious defect that Díaz-Canel, Rodríguez Dávila and Madrigal did not allude to: the energy crisis
The “dream” of electric buses and tricycles has an obvious defect that Díaz-Canel, Rodríguez Dávila and Madrigal did not allude to: the energy crisis that Cuba has been experiencing for years, and whose worsening is becoming more and more frequent. For the difficulties when charging and maintaining vehicles in the midst of long blackouts, managers do not seem to have an answer. The situation is comparable to that of the “energy revolution” that Fidel Castro decreed in 2006, and which led to the frenetic importation of rice cookers, stoves, heaters and other electrical equipment that were then useless during the blackouts.
The enthusiasm with the “tricycle revolution” is not only similar to that of 2006, but also occurs in a crisis of the National Electrical System very similar to the one that, then, led to the wholesale import of electrical devices.
The proof is offered, this Wednesday, by the Electrical Union, whose part lists an inventory of difficulties and breakdowns. Five units out of action due to breaks in several thermoelectric plants, three in maintenance, and a season of blackouts that, according to the technical director of the state company, Lázaro Guerra, will see some relief in July.
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