With gas prices high, people in developing countries are lining up to buy battery-powered bikes. The Iran war has made Trump “salesman of the year,” one executive in Pakistan said.
The frenzy started on a single street in Lahore, Pakistan, where a half-dozen showrooms sprang up selling the same thing — electric motorcycles — and still couldn’t keep up with demand. As gasoline prices soared this year a seventh store opened, followed by an eighth. Another two are doing business just around the corner.
Electric motorcycles scarcely existed in Pakistan three years ago. But across the country, new brands are arriving by the week with names like Vlektra and Jolta, from some 84 companies and counting.
They’re a mix of shoestring operations, venture-capital-backed start-ups and preexisting companies that see the potential and are jumping in. Even the Pakistani maker of Massey Ferguson tractors plans to launch an electric motorcycle line.
The surge signals how quickly, and perhaps permanently, people in developing countries are pivoting away from fossil fuels as the war in Iran keeps oil prices high.
“If all these people convert to electric, even 500 companies would not be enough,” said Mumtaz Hussain, the national sales manager for Eveon, which has a showroom on one end of the street, Maulana Shaukat Ali Road, where much of the shopping is happening in Lahore.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
