Project ideas we are working on

Certified electric conversion of the Philippine jeepney fleet

Around 250,000 traditional jeepneys remain on Philippine roads, burning about US$1.1 billion of imported fuel a year. Replacing them outright would cost US$10 billion and take more than twenty-five years, because a new electric unit at around US$40,000 never repays on jeepney fares. Second Life Mobility converts the existing vehicle instead — certified electric drive at about US$18,000, repaid from the diesel it stops burning, cutting running cost by up to 60 per cent where charging is part solar.

Electric bus pilot on the EDSA Bus Carousel

The EDSA Bus Carousel was built to relieve an overburdened rail line and still runs on diesel. We developed a pilot to put ten electric buses onto the corridor with five fast chargers at strategic depots, integrated fare collection, and structured data capture on ridership, energy use and reliability — the evidence base a 300-bus decision actually requires.

The case rests on operating economics rather than subsidy: electric buses cut fuel and maintenance costs by an estimated 30–40 per cent, and the Philippine EV law (RA 11697) provides the incentive framework. The pilot is scoped to test whether those numbers hold in Metro Manila traffic conditions before anyone commits to a fleet.

Locally assembled electric buses

Bangladesh runs 40,000–50,000 buses. They consume between a tenth and a fifth of the country's entire oil import bill and account for an estimated 1.5–2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ a year. Diesel is the single largest line in every operator's cost base — 75 to 80 litres to cover 300 kilometres.

The obvious answer is to import complete electric buses from China. We developed the alternative: assemble them in Bangladesh. A locally fabricated chassis built without an engine, a proven imported electric drivetrain, and a local body build, integrated outside Dhaka on a forty-day build cycle.

Total capital cost lands close to the imported alternative before duties — but the money spends differently. Local assembly keeps value in country, builds a domestic spare-parts and maintenance capability that imported fleets never develop, creates skilled jobs, and removes the duty and currency exposure that makes the import model fragile.

Electric taxi fleet replacement

Manila's taxi fleet is dominated by sedans seven to ten years old, carrying high fuel and maintenance costs on thin daily margins. We developed a concept to replace 100 of them with electric vehicles, supported by three charging hubs sized to the fleet's daily energy demand, and a rent-to-own structure that lets drivers acquire the asset rather than lease it indefinitely.

Operating cost reductions of up to eighty per cent are achievable on fuel and maintenance combined, which on our modelling gives a payback of a little over two years. The barriers are not technical — they are charging infrastructure, financing structures that suit driver-owners, and range confidence. The concept is built around removing those three specifically.

Electric boat and ferry conversion

The jeepney thesis applied to water. In an archipelago and along a delta, the boat is the bus — and the same argument holds: the hull long outlives the engine, so converting an existing vessel captures value that scrapping it destroys.

We are developing this across three markets at once, which is deliberate. Australia supplies the marine electric drive experience and the certification pathway; the Philippines and Bangladesh supply the fleets and the need. Bangladesh pilots at Sadarghat and Hatirjheel are in discussion.

Vessel class, counterparties and programme detail to be published as the concept firms up.

Getting foreign institutions into the ADB pipeline

Universities, research institutes and specialist firms outside the region routinely have the technical capability to win development bank work and no practical route into it. The opportunities that matter are rarely the published notices; they sit inside country partnership strategies, project pipelines and sector roadmaps, and they are won by teams assembled before the notice appears.

We act as in-country partner for that process: scoping studies that map the real opportunity and the competing bidders, positioning for visibility through seminars and co-authored publications, assembling consultant teams that meet the terms of reference, and full proposal preparation on shortlisting. We also arrange the meetings that are hard to get from outside — procurement staff who explain how proposals are actually evaluated, project officers who explain what they are actually looking for.

The same approach extends beyond ADB to other multilateral and bilateral funders across the region.

Delivered by a team drawn from our advisor network, several of whom held senior operational and procurement roles inside the institutions concerned.