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A laptop computer reads the voltage of an electrical scooter after it was used at a gathering within the capital for stunts and races in Cojimar, Cuba, Friday, July 15, 2022. AP PHOTO
HAVANA: The younger individuals come and go on their electrical bikes at this freeway outdoors Cuba’s capital the place they carry out stunts and speak about their two-wheelers, which might be largely silent if it weren’t for the music blasting from audio system.
Cuba has been flooded in recent times with “motorinas,” as the electrical scooters are referred to as on the island, which have been promoted by the federal government as environment friendly alternate options amid excessive fuel and diesel shortages, and as an answer to the nation’s transportation issues.
Authorities permitted their importation final decade – Cubans can’t import bikes with gasoline or diesel engines – and since then about 300,000 of them have circulated on the island, mentioned Col. Mario Ríos Labrada, head of car registry on the Nationwide Transit Directorate. Compared there are an estimated 500,000 vehicles.
The bikes can price between $2,000 and $5,000. Many originate in China and are imported to Cuba via Panama. Cuban officers say a regionally made electrical motorbike referred to as the “Minerva” is being produced at an previous bicycle manufacturing warehouse in Villa Clara.
“There may be an ‘outbreak’ of electrical bikes, everybody likes them,” mentioned Ernesto José Salazar, 20, who works in a paint store. “We obtained to fulfill up with 200 bikes, honking and listening to music.”
Younger riders arrange via social networks and spend hours discussing the advantages of a battery or the place to purchase tires or discover one of the best workshop.
“Gas is a misplaced trigger, you need to search for it and queue up, proper now having an electrical motorbike right here is life itself,” mentioned Alejandro Vasallo, 23.
Cuban drivers face shortages of gas, particularly diesel, which can also be used to energy the electrical energy turbines that feed the nation’s energy grid, which collapsed this summer time. Oil shortages have been attributable to difficulties in Venezuela – an ally and provider of the island – and US sanctions.
Folks watch a drag race between two electrical scooterists at a late afternoon gathering of electrical motorcycle house owners to indicate off stunts and races in Havana, Cuba, Friday, July 15, 2022. AP PHOTO
Electrical scooter drivers recharge the batteries via regular energy sockets and are out of luck when the availability goes down.
Authorities in Cuba promote electrical bikes as power environment friendly and as an alternative choice to a public transportation system plagued shortages of components to restore damaged down buses and an absence gas.
“Electrical energy will at all times be cheaper than diesel gas and gasoline, and as well as, electrical motors are rather more environment friendly than combustion engines, it can save you as much as 70% of the price of gas,” Ramsés Montes Calzadilla, technique director of the Ministry of Power and Mines, mentioned in an interview with information web site Cubadebate.
Electrical bikes are altering the city panorama in Cuba and likewise creating challenges: the batteries are likely to catch hearth and their relative silence accompanied by driver inexperience is inflicting visitors accidents.
The most recent figures out there from the Hearth Division indicated that within the first half of 2020 there have been 263 fires from bikes with gel or lithium batteries, a notable enhance in comparison with 208 for your complete 12 months 2019.
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