COMMENTARY: We just imported more ICE vehicles, now let’s electrify Dominica faster—not slower

Editor’s note: This is the first article of a three-part series. All views, and assertions presented therein are solely those of the author.

Dominica now has about 44,000 vehicles registered, and even if we discount the derelict and non-roadworthy units, we are still talking about a working fleet of roughly 40,000 licensed vehicles, including heavy equipment and motor bikes that must be licensed to operate on our roads.

That fleet is not just transport. It is foreign exchange leaving the country—every week.

In 2023, Dominica imported around US$56.3 million in “mineral fuels, oils and distillation products.” New higher prices for fuel were just announced from March 30, 2026 (Dominica News Online).

A major part of that is refined petroleum oils (non-crude), about US$52.26 million in 2023 (GlobalPetrolPrices.com). Of this total import bill about 51% was for land transport vehicles. The balance was primarily for generating electricity by diesel plants. This is not a minor line item for a small economy. It is a structural leak.

The July 2025 Budget signalled “older vehicles cost more”—and the market responded

The Highway Maintenance Levy was reintroduced effective October 1, 2025, with charges including $100 for private vehicles and $50 for motorcycles, plus a tiered schedule for commercial vehicles. (Dominica News Online) Parliament also moved on excise-tax adjustments affecting used vehicle imports.

Whether one agrees with every detail or not, the economic effect is familiar: when policy creates a deadline, people behave like people. Many importers and buyers rushed to bring in relatively newer used Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles—often lower mileage—before costs rose further. The result is that Dominica has increased its stock of “newer” ICE vehicles precisely at a moment when the world is reminding us that oil prices are not simply “prices”—they are geopolitical events.

So we have to ask a hard but practical question:

Do we treat the late-2025 ICE surge as a 10–15 year lock-in, or do we treat it as a bridge and electrify what comes next?

EV incentives exist—but they are not being communicated like a national strategy

One quiet fact in this debate is that EV incentives already exist, but many ordinary consumers and even some businesses do not know the rules clearly enough to act.

Official Government-linked investment-incentive information states import duty and VAT exemption on the importation of electric vehicles.

If Dominica is serious, incentives cannot feel like insider knowledge. They must be public, simple and bankable—a one-page public guide: eligibility, steps, departments, and typical timelines. That is how you turn a concession into a market shift.

I have changed to an EV

I have now changed to an EV. I purchased a BYD Seagull, which has just arrived on island. The image above is a photo of myself and my wife, OPHELIA, with the car.

We are publicising our purchase not as a fashion statement, but as a signal: the economics of EVs are real, and Dominica needs to move from imported energy to domestic energy primarily based on geothermal power of which our potential output is huge.

A personal note on geothermal: this conversation did not start yesterday

I also say this with a long memory. I was very involved in bringing the discussion on geothermal power back into the national conversation in 2002, together with my good friend and SMA hostel classmate, Adenauer “Washway” Douglas. I say “back in 2002”, because the conversation on geothermal actually started in the 1970’s!

Back then, geothermal was mostly an idea people debated. Today, geothermal is becoming a working asset—on a timeline that matters for our economy and our energy security. From all reports the modest 10MW geothermal power plant should be fully integrated into the national system by June of this year.

The immediate and practical impact of this is that power production from domestic green sources, Hydro and Geothermal, will cushion the population against the full impact of the expected rise in fuel prices which have already begun (Dominica News Online). Now is therefore the time to shift to using electricity for powering land transport vehicles.

The practical plan: electrify the fuel burners first

Dominica does not need to electrify every private car overnight to win big. The quickest national payoff comes from electrifying the vehicles that burn the most fuel—daily.

1) Fleet-first electrification (2026–2029): taxis, government fleets, rentals, delivery vehicles, buses. These vehicles rack up mileage. Electrifying them cuts fuel imports faster than waiting for private cars to turn over naturally.

2) Charging where it matters (not everywhere):

Start with depot charging for fleets and workplace charging for commuters. Then build a modest national backbone of reliable fast chargers on the main corridors with commercial fast charging terminals at strategic places such as the airport and a couple of the main travel routes.

3) Make EV imports the default, not the exception:

Set a national direction so the next wave becomes electric—rather than repeating a cycle where policy deadlines trigger one last rush of ICE vehicles before the door closes.

If we do those three things, the late-2025 ICE surge becomes a bridge—not a trap.

In Part 2, I will explain why this works only if we expand geothermal quickly: because electrifying transport becomes transformative when electricity is domestic, stable, and increasingly renewable.