Indonesia converting motorbikes to electric, aims for all e-vehicles

A new program is launching today in Indonesia to convert normal petrol-fueled motorbikes into electric vehicles to try to make Indonesian transportation more eco-friendly. Indonesia’s Energy Ministry announced the plan to make a more environmentally friendly mode of transportation and they have already converted 10 motorbikes.

The plan intends to convert 90 more motorbikes by November for a total of 100 electric motorbikes in the pilot programme. The conversions hope to contribute to the ministry’s plan to have by 2030 at least 2.2 million electric cars and 13 million electric motorbikes on Indonesia’s roads.

The long-term goal is to eventually ban the sale of all non-electric vehicles throughout Indonesia by 2050. Thailand has set a similar but even more ambitious goal to sell only electric vehicles by 2035.

Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest contributors to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, with the latest statistics from Indonesia’s automotive industries showing that the country has 15 million cars but 112 million motorcycles as of 2019.

But the country has an ambitious plan to turn its polluter status around to benefit the environment and the economy by pushing for electric vehicles. Indonesia is naturally rich in nickel laterite ore, a vital ingredient in lithium batteries and the government hopes to use that advantage to being a global centre for batteries and electric vehicle production. Thailand recently expressed a similar goal of being Southeast Asia’s hub for e-vehicles.

Indonesia is the biggest economy in Southeast Asia and they plan on utilising the small and medium-sized business sectors to spearhead the process of converting traditional combustion engine motorbikes into electric vehicles. They also intend to change all public buses to electric buses.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post