E-Scooters on Island of the Gods Demonstrate Asia’s Green Shoots

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The last few weeks in Southeast Asia have been busy, with several high-profile international conferences taking place in Bali, Bangkok and Singapore. After a Covid-induced lull of close to three years, the region is buzzing again as nations do away with virus restrictions and encourage in-person meetings.

For Vivek Lath, a partner with McKinsey & Co., another thing stood out. At this year's Group of 20 summit, on the tropical resort island of Bali, several companies provided electric two-wheelers for attendees to move from their hotels to the main conference complex. Local police also rode electric scooters to escort delegates. Lath believes that's evidence of the electric vehicle revolution taking off in Southeast Asia — albeit on two wheels.

“Many companies are realizing that electric two-wheelers will be first taken up in this part of the world,” Lath said in an interview in Singapore on Friday. “It's a segment that's going to accelerate much faster.”

Indeed, in Southeast Asia's crowded cities, from Hanoi to Jakarta, having a smaller vehicle makes more sense. For the emerging middle classes, it's also easier to afford, considering the cost of battery-powered cars remains prohibitively high on a relative basis.

Rahul Gupta, Lath's colleague and an associate partner at McKinsey, believes electric two-wheelers could make up as much as 50% of the overall motorbike market in the region by 2030, compared with as low as 20% for cars.

Countries like Indonesia and Vietnam — already big markets for scooters and motorcycles — will drive that growth, particularly as last-mile delivery companies such as Grab and GoJek commit to shifting their fleet entirely to electric vehicles, Gupta said.

Indonesia Battery Corp., a state-owned EV