The ten ecomobiles that cover four urban routes in Trinidad, Sancti Spíritus, have drastically reduced their trips because they are unable to fully charge their batteries, according to a report from the state channel CentroVisión Yayabo.
A representative of the Taxis Cuba agency in Trinidad openly acknowledged the problem: "Most of the time, the buses cannot go out to work. They need to have a reserve, meaning they must keep, so to speak, a minimum load of 20% for the maintenance of the batteries, which are very complex."
The operational threshold is demanding: vehicles must reach over 90% charge before they can go out for work, but the available time to connect to the National Electric System (SEN) is so limited that they rarely achieve it.
"They need to be charged to over 90%, and we hardly have a schedule; in other words, the schedule is limited so that they can reach the charge they need to go out to work," admitted the executive before the cameras of the official channel.
The most revealing aspect of the report is what does not exist: the promised solar panels for Trinidad never arrived in the municipality. The original project included a solar charging station at the Taxis Cuba headquarters, an investment that the regime never carried out.
In June 2024, the Minister of Transport Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila promised to "include solar panels for electric charging, so that it is truly clean and autonomous technology." Two years later, that promise remains unfulfilled.
As a temporary solution, the company installed a direct connection to the National Electric System funded by the Development Fund of the Ministry of Transport and executed by the Electrical Engineering Services Company (ESIE).
In other words, the ecomobiles—presented as an alternative to the collapse of conventional transportation—now rely on the same electrical system that is falling apart.
"That's why there are failures of the buses on the routes," concluded the interviewed leader.
The backdrop exacerbates everything. Sancti Spíritus suspended all its intermunicipal and rural transport routes in May due to a lack of diesel, leaving the ecomobiles as the only active urban service in Trinidad. However, even they cannot operate normally.
The energy crisis that is paralyzing them is historic: Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy admitted in May that Cuba had "absolutely nothing" in fuel oil or diesel.
In November 2025, the regime grandly inaugurated the country's first experimental electric charging station at the manufacturer’s headquarters in Sancti Spíritus - with the capacity to recharge only one minibus at a time - but that infrastructure also did not reach Trinidad.
Meanwhile, the delegate of the Ministry of Transport in Sancti Spíritus, José Lorenzo García, announced a few days ago the production of 50 new ecomobiles with these words: «The production of Ecomobiles is resuming to continue alleviating passenger transport during this very difficult time the country is going through.»
A manifestly insufficient figure for a province where, according to reports from September 2025, "people daily have to walk long distances as they no longer have any hope of being able to travel" in these vehicles.
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