“Gasoline? Imagine, 50 years struggling with that, I don’t even want to smell it anymore!” says Sixto González, 58, showing off his bright blue electric quadricycle, which he travels at around 40 kilometers an hour through Havana, where the fuel is scarce and public transport a torture.
Motorcycles, tricycles and electric cars increasingly dot the landscape of the Cuban capital, dominated until now by old American automobiles from the 1950s and compact Ladas from the Soviet era.
With a price between US$ 4,000 and US$ 8,000 (R$ 20,600 and 41,200), quadricycles have become the dream of many Havanans plagued by transportation difficulties. The last time Sixto filled his car with diesel, he had to wait in line for eight hours.
This retired taxi driver is lucky enough to own, in addition to the quadricycle, one of the 600,000 combustion cars that circulate on the island, where 11.2 million people live, according to official figures. Many Cubans prefer a motorcycle or an electric tricycle, often used as a taxi or for cargo.
In a decommissioned former Soviet truck assembly plant in the central city of Santa Clara is the Minerva factory, where most of these motorcycles imported from China or Vietnam are now assembled.
Amid the noise of automatic screwdrivers, 100 workers assemble and paint the electric vehicles, which advance perched on production mats. The goal is to make 10,000 motorcycles this year, says Elier Pérez, director of Minerva, whose maximum annual production so far has been 5,000.
Rows of tricycles ready for sale are stored in another section of the warehouse. They are part of the 2,000 three-wheelers planned for this year, says Pérez. Between 40,000 and 50,000 electric motorcycles currently circulate in the country, according to authorities.
“I had to buy it because the gas ran out, and the lines (…) are endless, so I said: ‘No, I’m going to buy something because I have to move,'” explains Raúl Suárez, riding his new electric vehicle. This type of transport is “solving a lot, it’s a good initiative,” says Suárez, 52, a security employee.
Three years ago the government started promoting the use of electric vehicles, introducing them to state-owned companies for their staff.
“Cuba is a rolling museum”, with a large number of cars “with 35 years”, laments Guillermo González, director of Engineering at the Ministry of Transport. With electric cars, “fuel consumption of both diesel and gasoline will decrease, and at the same time we will reduce pollution”, adds the official.
motorcycles and refrigerators
Public transport is also an ordeal. Almost 50% of buses are stopped “due to lack of tires and batteries”. Havana residents sometimes wait hours to board a bus trying to get to work.
For the government, the priority is public transport and freight for the distribution of food, says González. But there are many obstacles due to “the blockade imposed on us, which doesn’t allow us to buy parts, doesn’t allow us credits”, explains González, referring to the US embargo against the island, which has lasted six decades.
People crowd in endless lines to get gas, and finding diesel in recent weeks has been quite a feat.
The problem comes from 2019, when Washington tightened sanctions, blocking the arrival of Venezuelan oil tankers. Oil supply has dropped from 100,000 barrels a day to about 56,000 on average in 2021, explains Jorge Piñon, a Cuban energy policy expert at the University of Texas.
Added to this is the deficit in electricity generation for almost a month, due to failures and maintenance work at thermoelectric plants in the country. To make up for the shortage, the authorities resort to diesel-powered generator sets, allocating most of this fuel for this purpose.
“We’ve never seen a situation as precarious as the one we live in today, and we still have three months of hot summer,” warns Piñón.
However, the director of strategic policy at the Ministry of Energy, Ramses Calzadilla, guarantees that this deficit does not prevent the operation of electric vehicles. “We could say that an electric motorcycle is very similar to a refrigerator” in terms of consumption, he says, optimistic that thermoelectric plants will soon recover and Cuba will have enough light.
Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
