A consultation in Islamabad organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute urged urgent, coordinated action to electrify Pakistan’s transport sector as a shield against rising geopolitical tensions and oil market volatility. Participants said an accelerated EV transition is essential to reduce the import bill and strengthen national energy security.<\/p>\n
Dr Sajid Amin Javed<\/strong>, Deputy Executive Director (Research) at SDPI, warned that oil imports remain the largest component of Pakistan’s import bill and that transport is the biggest oil-consuming sector. He highlighted that motorbikes account for nearly 40 percent of petrol consumption and recommended a focused replacement strategy for existing vehicles, trade-in schemes, pooled financing with banks and industry, and mainstreaming transport electrification into federal and provincial budgets.<\/p>\n Engineer Ubaid ur Rehman Zia<\/strong>, Head of SDPI’s Energy Unit, emphasized that the current crisis exposes vulnerabilities in global supply chains as much as price shocks, underscoring the need for diversification and a resilient approach to EV transition that anticipates disrupted imports and component shortages.<\/p>\n Dr Naveed Arshad<\/strong> of the LUMS Energy Institute pointed to Pakistan’s rapid solar boom driven by consumer investment, noting that most installations are downstream rather than grid-based. He argued for leveraging that momentum through grid upgrades, expanded charging infrastructure and regulatory reform to enable broader EV adoption and to remove overly prescriptive rules that stifle innovation.<\/p>\n Prof Aazir Anwar Khan<\/strong> of the University of Lahore urged integration of energy, EV and battery industries into a unified industrial strategy. He recommended treating EVs as a separate industrial category, promoting local manufacturing of vehicles and batteries, scaling retrofitting programs for roughly 30 million existing bikes, and piloting battery swapping and spare parts markets to speed uptake.<\/p>\n Dr Majid Bilal Khan<\/strong> from Indus Consortium identified financing gaps as a core barrier, noting banks’ concerns about policy inconsistency and uncertainty over resale values and battery life. He called for consistent long-term policy, removal of financing caps, concessional loan schemes for two- and three-wheelers and localization strategies that include overlooked transport segments such as fisheries and water transport.<\/p>\n Speakers also stressed the role of narrative, standards and skills. Saleeha Qureshi<\/strong> urged stronger institutional and political will, while Yasir Darya<\/strong> recommended building a public narrative tying EVs to broader urban planning and reduced car dependency. Aiman Shafique<\/strong> warned about uncertified local EV kit installations and urged clear standards for retrofitting and conversions. Asad Mehmood<\/strong> advocated workforce certification programs for mechanics and technicians, and Kamil Maqsood<\/strong> from the Ministry of Energy called for better federal-provincial coordination and targeted resource allocation aligned with energy security priorities.<\/p>\n Presenting the Charter of Demand, Omais Abdur Rehman<\/strong> proposed fast-tracking national EV targets from 2030 to 2028, expanding charging infrastructure beyond current plans, redirecting public development funds toward EV-compatible infrastructure, ring-fencing petroleum levy revenues for EV development, and launching single-window financing and simplified licensing for charging stations.<\/p>\n Sarim Zia<\/strong> of SDPI highlighted fuel cost pressures from recent volatility, noting figures that show pre-crisis fuel expenses rising from around Rs4,400 to nearly Rs7,000 and stressing that subsidy reliance is unsustainable. He said accelerating the EV transition would lower running costs for consumers while cutting the import bill and conserving petrol reserves.<\/p>\n In closing, Hussain Jawad<\/strong> of Indus Consortium said Pakistan’s solar boom shows how technology-driven shifts succeed when backed by consistent policy. He summarized the main obstacles as policy inconsistency, financing shortfalls and weak localization, and said stakeholder recommendations will be conveyed to the government ahead of the federal budget to convert the consultation’s proposals into actionable policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Experts call for fast EV transition and stable policy to protect Pakistan from energy shocks with financing, local manufacturing and charging infrastructure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}