MANILA - Tech-logistics company Mober is investing in electric vehicles to save on fuel as prices of petroleum products spiked in the past weeks, its CEO Dennis Ng said Monday.

Although the costs of each electric vehicle may be higher than regular vans, the savings would be bigger in the long term, he said.

Ng said with the rising cost of fuel, the timing of its shift to electric vehicles was perfect.

"Versus yung current na P70+ sa diesel, ang cost namin sa EV kalahati lang nun," he said.

Mober said it is currently working with IKEA Pasay City to deliver orders from the furniture giant. It plans to have an all-electric fleet by 2025, it said.

IKEA's Fulfillment Business Developer Jon Cinconiegue agreed that electric "is better."

"Kasi the conventional one, sa traffic sa Manila, sa city, they tend to use more diesel, stop and go , stop and go. In electric cars, trucks, even if you stop and go, there's some technology that would recharge automatically the batteries of these trucks," he said.

However, both Ng and Cinconiegue admit there are still challenges to the country's EV industry such as the lack of infrastructure or charging station and the high cost per vehicle unit.

But both insist it's still a worthy investment.

"The savings using EV will not be felt immediately. The investment part is quite big, but if you spread it out in 5 years, the amount of savings will be 70 percent vs conventional use," Cinconiegue said.

Fuel prices in the country rose for 11 consecutive weeks before a scheduled easing on Tuesday. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has pushed global oil prices to surge to new highs due to the disruptions in oil production and supply chain.

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