The rumble of 1959 Chevrolets, once the rhythmic heartbeat of Havana, is fading to the near silence of electric vehicles as the island faces its worst fuel shortage in years.
For six decades, Cuba’s roads changed little, defined by colorful vintage cars. But in recent years, Cubans increasingly adopted electric vehicles as fuel became more scarce. Now, they are helping the population grapple with a worsening fuel crisis, since the U.S. cut off oil exports from the communist-run country’s ally Venezuela and threatened to penalize other countries exporting fuel to the island.
Donald Trump’s administration has declared Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.
they are already the only country with a very high human development index and a ecological footprint smaller than 1.7 global hectares per person which is the threshold beneath which development can be sustainable.
source
but i’m afraid with the health and education system completely falling apart, especially in rural communities, this high hdi will not be maintained.
also there is no money for normal people to get any kind of vehicle, let alone electric.
if they are lucky and have some family abroad they might be able to source a solar panel, converter and battery, but going electric is far away, even if we consider the cheapest chinese EVs sold at 3000usd.
they might be able to pull it off in a different way, cubans have become really resilient and resourceful. old washing machine motors would be sold to transform into generators, normal one use lighters would be made refillable (the gas canisters would be reused insecticide cans), electronics would be fixed on a hardware level…
but that was before…on addition to the ever tighter embargoes and economical woes that come with it, since 2012 the population declined rapidly from a maximum of 11.2 million people to 9.75 million people in 2024, due to emigration and natural population decline through an ageing society source
Doesn’t Cuba punch well above its weight class when it comes to medicine, including universal free medical and dental? IIRC, hasn’t the US embargo basically fostered the development of Cuba’s own burgeoning biotech industry?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba
I am sure that the US blockade has made life exponentially harder. Self reliance is one thing but access to raw materials is another.
OTOH they seem like a resilient people. If there’s anywhere on Earth that exudes “Fine; I’ll do it myself” energy when dealing with America, Cuba is it. I hope this makes them even stronger. I hope they find a way to completely circumvent America. I actually hope that for the whole world.
they definitely do punch above their weightclass, they’ve developed a vaccine against a certain type of pulmonary cancer, developed their own covid vaccine etc.
the thing is the lack of money and professionals to keep the system running.
apparently since the new constitution of of 2019 was approved, which amongst other things (re)affirmed the right of private property and foreign investments and opens the economy up to a market economy, the state has been reducing funding for education and health systems, which is especially apparent in rural areas. The direction to a more privately owned system is set and taken.
a fairly omnipresent example is medicines: during covid the state dropped the customs duty on medicine, in order to alleviate supply chain problems, so individuals could import medicine from around the world. this trend is ongoing, you will see a lot of whatsapp statuses of people offering and looking for certain types of medicines. Also a lot of selling and reselling of any imported goods such as generators, motorbikes, air conditioning, etc. is going on through whatsapp and other social media market places. a lot of people have internet on their mobile phones nowadays, they no longer rely on “el paquete”.
Could you elaborate a bit more on the issues around shortages of funding and professionals?
My understanding was that Cuba has had one of the highest doctor-to-population ratios in the world, and that its medical schools were often treated almost like a public works project to train large numbers of physicians.
Is it an issue of brain drain (graduate qualifying and then leaving for greener pastures?)
(I’m not doubting what you say btw; just trying to address my own ignorance).
PS: El Paquete is exactly the example of “fine, I’ll do it myself” response I had in mind. At 1TB per week, that was/is one of the largest sneakernets in the world.
i’m just relaying on what my cuban friends have told me: yes, it’s mostly brain drain on one side, and on the other hand there is ever less resources due to dwindling tourism and ever more expensive petrol. at the same time that more resources are injected into these tourist and prestige areas where you have water and electricity 24/7 while the costs to maintain them are ever rising. i heard of local schools in the escambray mountains where there is no teachers anymore, and it’s neighbours themselves that are not qualified in a teachers capacity that take care of teaching the few remaining children. so less resources that are more concentrated. also Cuba is huge and has many different regions, what is true for Havana and los Cayos is not true for the eastern and southern regions, i assume the impacts vary but all go in the same direction
and yeah, the paquete was the bomb :)