President Bola Tinubu has approved the deployment of electric-powered vehicles for use in the North-East due to gas shortage in the region.
Mohammed Akali, managing director, the North-East Development Commission (NEDC), disclosed this shortly after leading the management team to meet with President Bola Tinubu, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Wednesday.
The region is also embarking on the development of a 5kva solar centre to support the deployment of the e-vehicles.
Akali said that the Commission has also developed a master plan that encompasses the developmental needs of the region.
The Commission explained that it had earlier initiated plans for the deployment of the vehicles in the region following its disadvantaged position in the supply of gas.
He noted that following the president’s directive on the deployment of CNG-powered vehicles, the Commission carried out a thorough analysis and came up with the decision to deploy e-vehicles as a better alternative for the region.
“We at the North-East Development Commission did a thorough analysis of our region (covering six states) and looked at the comparable advantage between CNG and e-vehicles.
“After our analysis, we concluded that e-vehicle can work better for many reasons.”
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He said that the Commission would create modular solar-powered units across the states which can be used to power the e-vehicles.
“We sought and got the approval of the presidency for us to go ahead and come up with the framework of how we are going to deploy this e-mobility in the North-East and what kind of e-mobility, etc. And Mr. President graciously approved, and today (Wednesday), we came to present to him the kind of e-vehicles we are going to introduce in the North-East.”
The Commission explained that three categories of e-vehicles would be deployed, including e-buses, e-taxis and e-tricycles
“We will deploy e-busses, which can carry about 40 people or passengers at a given point in time, at the minimum, and that is for intrastate. Also, we brought some samples of e-taxis which will carry three passengers as well as the driver, and we also brought in a highly modified tricycle.
“Most of the tricycles we have in the North- East or elsewhere only carry three people plus the driver, but in our case, we have modified it to carry eight people plus the driver, and it’s fully covered and very convenient. Also, knowing the kind of weight and the people we are going to carry, we’ve asked our engineers to modify the physical structure of the tricycle, when you look at it, you can see the tyres are bigger”, he said.
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