Finally saw one of the taxis operated by Green GSM, which is a Vietnamese company. This is supposed to be the first all-electric taxi service in the Philippines.

My colleagues and I were talking about this. Among other topics is whether these taxis will not encounter problems once the rains pour and many streets are flooded. We also wondered whether these vehicles will add to the congestion; slugging it out with the established competitors.

Another, more deeper and serious topic is whether these are really clean. While these are emission free as far as the proverbial tailpipe is concerned, the sources of power are not necessarily so.

While we do have renewables in the mix including hydro, geothermal, solar and wind, much of our power used to produce electricity uses fossil fuels.

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