- President Tinubu has approved the deployment of electric vehicles by the North East Development Commission (NEDC)
- The North East Development Commission (NEDC) opted for electric vehicles due unavailability of gas in the region
- The e-vehicles will be categorised into e-buses, e-taxis, and modified tricycles
President Bola Tinubu has authorised the North East Development Commission (NEDC) to deploy electric vehicles as a replacement for Compress Natural Gas (CNG) in the region.
Mohammed Alkali, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the NEDC, revealed this information to State House correspondents on Wednesday, October 2, following the commission's presentation to the President regarding the optimal implementation of e-vehicles in the region.
Electric vehicles chosen over CNG due to gas unavailability, NEDC
He said, “We are here today (Wednesday) to brief Mr President on one very critical activity he has approved which we had to engage in the last two months.
According to the Managing Director, the commission selected electric vehicles instead of CNG-powered alternatives because there is gas available in the region.
“As you can recall, there’s a directive from the President that cars as soon as possible should use CNG or electric vehicles, and we at the Northeast Development Commission did a thorough analysis of our region, because we cover six states in Northeast Region, and look at the comparable advantage between CNG and e-vehicles.
“And after our thorough analysis, we concluded that for the North East region, yes, the CNG could work, but e-vehicle can work better for many reasons.
Presidency approves NEDC’s framework for e-mobility deployment
“One is that our plan at the end of the day is to create modular solar power units across the state which can be used to power this percentage of e-vehicles.
“On that note, earlier on, we sought and got approval from 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 northeast and what kind of e-mobility, etc.
“And Mr. President graciously approved, and today we came to present to him the kind of E-vehicles we are going to introduce in the Northeast.”
Addressing the question regarding the e-vehicles, Alkali explained, “You know, I told you earlier that when we started the whole process, we have to engage ourselves in a very thorough analysis of what can work. Yes, there will be difficulties.
Comprehensive charging facilities planned for e-vehicles
“For instance, if you talk about gas-powered CNG, the gas has to come from somewhere, because we don’t have gas in the north for now. But e-vehicle what you need is power. To power all e-facilities as part of the arrangement for us to establish very comprehensive composite charging facilities for all our e-vehicles.
“This already is part of the work plan, which we are trying to do. In addition, we’re also considering establishing five or 10 KVA solar-powered grids stand-alone, so that this can be back up for the inadequacy of the power supplies.
“So, we are aware of all these challenges. But sometimes with challenges come opportunities and when we start, yes, we may have one more, two, three challenges in terms of power bank, but we already made a plan to see that, besides the usual generating plant, we are also going to back up some solar power grids stand-alone to power this station, we are going to build.”
He added that the e-vehicles that will utilise electricity are divided into three distinct categories.
Three categories of e-vehicles introduced for northeast deployment
“There are three categories. One is the E-buses, which can carry about 40 people or passengers at a given point in time, at the minimum, and that’s for intrastate, not interstate. Also, we brought some samples of e-taxis which normally carry three people 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 four, but in our case, we have modified it to carry eight people plus the driver, and it’s fully covered and very convenient, and we are also, knowing the kind of weight and 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, the prime is bigger, and so so forth.
“And also, in doing that, we consider local content that the body can be fabricated locally in the North East or somewhere else in the region.
“So today we made a presentation to the President. And delightfully, the chairman is here and Mr. President approved that we should go ahead and deploy the e-mobility in the northeast region.”
Nigeria partners with Chinese company to produce electric tricycles, others
Meanwhile, TheRadar earlier reported that the Federal Government of Nigeria and China’s Mutual Commitment Company Limited signed an MoU to collaborate on electric tricycle assembly and renewable energy training.
According to the report, Mutual Commitment Company Limited is already involved in building power plants in Nigeria, including a 12-megawatt facility in Maiduguri and a 3-megawatt plant in Kaduna according to report.