If not for the music blasting from audio system, the bikes racing and performing stunts on the freeway exterior Cuba’s capital of Havana could be nearly silent.
Key factors:
- Cuban electric scooter riders say fuel is a “lost cause” making the bikes “life itself”
- Officials welcome the bikes instead to automobiles and public transport
- But they will trigger site visitors accidents and the electric batteries have a tendency to catch hearth
The island nation has seen an inflow of “motorinas”, because the electric scooters are dubbed, in latest years, with 300,000 of them circulating nationwide.
Cuban authorities permitted their importation final decade and the federal government has promoted them instead to automobiles and public transport amid excessive gasoline and diesel shortages.
The National Transit Directorate’s head of auto registry Colonel Mario Rios Labrada mentioned in comparability there have been an estimated 500,000 automobiles.
The bikes can price between $US2,000 and $US5,000 ($2,900-7,200), with many imported from China by Panama.
Cuban officers mentioned a regionally made electric motorbike referred to as the Minerva was being produced at an previous bicycle manufacturing warehouse in Villa Clara.
“There is an ‘outbreak’ of electric motorcycles, everyone likes them,” mentioned 20-year-old rider Ernesto José Salazar.
“We got to meet up with 200 motorcycles, honking and listening to music.”
Young riders, assembly by social media, spend hours discussing the advantages of a battery or the place to purchase tires or discover the most effective workshop.
The fuel shortages plaguing Cuban drivers additionally hinders the electrical energy mills feeding the nation’s energy grid, which collapsed in June.
Electric scooter drivers recharged the batteries by regular energy sockets however have been omitted of luck throughout energy outages.
Oil shortages have been brought on by difficulties in Venezuela – an ally and provider of the island – and US sanctions.
The public transport system has additionally been affected by shortages of components to restore damaged down buses.
Ministry of Energy and Mines technique director Ramsés Montes Calzadilla mentioned in an interview with information web site Cubadebate that electrical energy would “always be cheaper” than diesel and gasoline.
“In addition, electric motors are much more efficient than combustion engines, you can save up to 70 per cent of the cost of fuel,” he mentioned.
However, because the electric bikes change Cuba’s city panorama additionally they create challenges.
The batteries have a tendency to catch hearth and their relative silence, coupled with driver inexperience, has brought on site visitors accidents.
The newest Fire Department figures indicated in the primary half of 2020 there have been 263 fires from bikes with gel or lithium batteries.
It was in stark distinction to 2019, when there have been 208 fires in the complete yr.
ABC/AP