Pakistan EV Launches to Accelerate Clean Energy Transition

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistani automobile joint ventures with Chinese automakers BYD and Changan have recently launched several all-electric and plug-in hybrid models of automobiles in Pakistan. Earlier, Honda Atlas Cars Pakistan Limited announced plans to build a hybrid electric vehicles plant in the country. Other major brands like Toyota, Haval, and Hyundai are already offering similar models in the country. It all began with the 2019 electric vehicle policy approved by the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to incentivize the electrification of the auto industry. Pakistan EV policy goal is to achieve 30% of new cars sales, 50% of new 2-wheeler and 3-wheeler sales and 30% of new truck sales by 2030. By 2040, the target is 90% of all new vehicle sales to be electric. The main incentive is the reduction of sales tax from 17% for internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to 1% for all-electric (EV) vehicles.

BYD EV. Source: CNBC

BYD Launch:

Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD has announced plans to open an EV production plant in Karachi.  It will start selling three EV models in Pakistan through a partnership with Mega Motors. Mega Motors is a unit of Pakistan's largest private utility Hub Power Co Ltd (HPWR.PSX), known as Hubco. 

"Our entry into the Pakistani market is not just about bringing advanced vehicles to consumers," said Liu Xueliang, BYD's general manager for Asia Pacific, according to Reuters. "It's about driving a broader vision of environmental responsibility and technological innovation." "We will establish Pakistan's first NEV assembly plant... dedicated to producing BYD's cutting-edge new energy vehicles," said Hubco Chief Executive Kamran Kamal, who described the deal as a "landmark investment".

The BYD factory will be built near Karachi’s Port Qasim area that already houses assembly plants for other automobile companies including Toyota, Suzuki Motor Corp. and Kia Corp.’s local units. It will be completed in the first half of 2026, according to Bloomberg. 

Last year, BYD’s total production – comprising battery-only powered cars as well as hybrids – was more than 3 million and surpassed Tesla’s production of 1.84 million cars for a second straight year, according to CNBC. 

A BYD model comparable to Tesla Model Y is $10,000 cheaper and has more features, according to news reports. 

Changan Launch: 

Master Changan Motors Limited (MCML), a joint venture between Pakistan's Master Group of Industries and China's Changan International, launched Changan’s electric-first brand, DEEPAL, this month in Karachi, Pakistan.  The joint venture unveiled the brand Deepal with 2 models, L07, the pure electric sports luxury sedan and S07 the pure electric premium SUV. 

Both Changan models offer 250 HP and 320 Nm of instant torque, going from  0-100 km/hr in just 5.9 seconds. The Ternary Lithium battery by CATL has a capacity of 66.8 kWh and provides an exceptional range of up to 540 km in L07 and 485 km in S07. The cars are designed in Italy in Changan’s R&D center and have won the German RedDot design award in 2023 with its futuristic design, according to media reports. 

Changan has sold 45,000 cars in Pakistan in the last 5 years. 

Honda Atlas:

Last month Honda Atlas Cars Pakistan Limited (HACPL) announced its plan to invest Rs. 5 billion in a cutting-edge hybrid vehicle production facility in Pakistan. This investment will support the local manufacturing and assembly of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). 

The company recently reported a 324% jump in sales, totaling Rs. 15.97 billion compared to Rs. 3.77 billion in the same period last year. The company reported a gross profit of Rs. 1.01 billion for the first quarter of FY25.

Two and Three Wheelers:

Prior to the BYD and Changan EV launches, Pakistan granted EV manufacturing licenses to 32 local companies under the EV Policy 2019, according to the Business Recorder newspaper.  Metro Electric Bikes, VLEKTRA and Sazgar Engineering Works are among the key names leading the two and three wheeler EV manufacturing in Pakistan. 

“Motorcycle buyers have started to inquire about electric bikes, scooty, and scooters options. I believe many have postponed buying a normal two-wheeler with expectations that an electric two-wheel model may soon enter the market that is closer to their need,” said Sabir Sheikh, who is also the Chairman, Association of Pakistan Motorcycle Assemblers (APMA), according to media reports. 

Charging Infrastructure: 

A number of investors, including ADM Group, Hashoo Group and Hubco are planning to invest in building a nationwide EV charging stations network. The EV policy provides incentives for it by reducing import duty on charging equipment imports to just 1% and lower power tariffs. It also ensures uninterrupted power supply on feeders fir charging stations. 

Hubco said it will setup fast-charging stations across major cities, motorways and highways to enhance Pakistan's charging infrastructure, according to Reuters.  The EV policy calls for at least one fast DC charging station per 3km by 3km area in all major cities as well as DC fast chargers on all motorways every 15-30 km.

Soaring Imports of Chinese Solar Panels in Pakistan. Source: Bloomberg

Solar Power Boom:

With rapidly falling solar panel prices, Pakistan is experiencing a solar power boom in the country. The country imported some 13 gigawatts of solar modules in the first six months of the year, making it the third-largest destination for Chinese exporters, according to Bloomberg.

Rapid increase in solar power generation complements Pakistan's push to a clean energy economy and EV adoption. This may encourage some of the charging station operators to go solar with batteries to reduce their cost of power purchases from the grid. 

Climate Action:

Pakistan has contributed only 0.28% of the CO2 emissions but it is among the biggest victims of climate change. The US, Europe, India, China and Japan, the world's biggest polluters, must accept responsibility for the catastrophic floods in Pakistan and climate disasters elsewhere. A direct link of the disaster in Pakistan to climate change has been confirmed by a team of 26 scientists affiliated with World Weather Attribution, a research initiative that specializes in rapid studies of extreme events, according to the New York Times. 

Top 5 Current Polluters. Source: Our World in Data

Currently, the biggest annual CO2 emitters are China, the US, India and Russia. Pakistan's annual CO2 emissions add up to just 235 million tons. On the other hand, China contributes 11.7 billion tons, the United States 4.5 billion tons, India 2.4 billion tons, Russia 1.6 billion tons and Japan 1.06 billion tons. 

Pakistan's Annual CO2 Emission. Source: Our World in Data

The United States has contributed 399 billion tons (25%) of CO2 emissions, the highest cumulative carbon emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century. The 28 countries of the European Union (EU28), including the United Kingdom, come in second with 353 billion tons of CO2 (22%), followed by China with 200 billion tons (12.7%). 

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Solar Power Boom in Pakistan

Pakistan Electric Vehicle Policy

Nuclear Power in Pakistan

Can Urban Forests Beat the Heat in Pakistani Cities

Pakistan's Response to Climate Change

IPP Contacts Bankrupting Pakistan

Renewable Energy for Pakistan

Net Metering in Pakistan

Pakistan's Digital Public Infrastructure Transforming Lives

My Family's Contribution to Climate Action

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

Ownership of Appliances and Vehicles in Pakistan

CPEC Transforming Pakistan

Pakistan's $20 Billion Tourism Industry Boom

Riaz Haq's YouTube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

[Riaz Haq]

Wave Tech to Establish Pakistan's First Lithium Battery Manufacturing Plant


https://propakistani.pk/2025/01/28/wave-tech-to-establish-pakistans...

Wave Tech has announced its plan to set up Pakistan’s first-ever lithium battery manufacturing plant at the Malir Industrial Park (MIP) in Karachi, with a substantial Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of $200 million.

The construction of this state-of-the-art facility is set to commence in December 2025, and battery production is expected to start by mid-2026.

This groundbreaking initiative aims to phase out oxide batteries in Pakistan, contributing to the country’s transition towards modern and sustainable energy solutions.

The Malir Industrial Park (MIP), a flagship project of the Pakistan Economic Zones Development and Management Company (PEZDMC), is at the forefront of fostering industrial growth in Karachi.

Envisioned as a world-class industrial zone, MIP is designed to boost manufacturing and exports while generating significant employment opportunities. Its strategic location in Malir ensures seamless connectivity to key infrastructure, including the Karachi Port, Port Qasim, and major highways, making it an ideal destination for investors and industries.

[Riaz Haq]

China pledges $340mn to Pakistan's EV sector - Investment Monitor

https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/news/china-pledges-340mn-to-pakist...

A group of Chinese firms has pledged to invest $340mn in Pakistan’s electric vehicle (EV) sector to expand their manufacturing plants and charging stations, according to local news outlets. The investment was announced at a press briefing inaugurating a joint project between Malik Group and China’s ADEN Group.



“If the company manufactures EVs in Pakistan, the Sindh government will purchase over 20% of the vehicles produced at the Karachi plant,” Sindh province’s Energy Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah.



Malik Group chairperson Malik Khuda Bakhsh said 30 charging plants are set to be delivered from China in the next ten days. The project seems to be moving fast as Bakhsh added that Pakistan aimed to “have the necessary infrastructure operation by the end of this year.”

ADEN Group, which has its global headquarters in Singapore, is expected to invest $90mn for 3,000 charging stations and $240mn for an EV production facility.

“By December, EV production will begin, with an annual output target of 72,000 units,” ADEN Group CEO Yasser Bhambani said. “We also plan to export vehicles to the Middle East, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.”

Recently, Pakistan experienced some positive FDI growth. In August 2024, data from the State Bank of Pakistan showed there had been a monthly rise in FDI compared to 2023. It received $136.3mn in net FDI in July 2024, marking a 64% increase compared to July 2023.

[Riaz Haq]

As US-China trade war escalates, could Pakistan be Beijing's EV loophole? - CSMonitor.com


https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2025/0214/China-...


Amid the ornately painted trucks bellowing smoke and the green and yellow tuk-tuks, the Chinese-made Haval Hybrid Electric Vehicle has become a ubiquitous sight on the streets of Islamabad.

---
--
Some are looking to neighboring Pakistan, a country of 240 million which has so far welcomed Chinese automakers, to buoy sales – and possibly bypass (US) tariffs. In recent months, several Chinese automakers have either doubled down on their Pakistan projects or made their first foray into the market.

As EVs become an increasingly important geopolitical battleground, former Pakistan finance minister Miftah Ismail says that, at least in the short-term, Pakistan could serve as a sort of pressure release valve for Beijing. But he predicts the West will eventually catch up.

“The West will say that EV components have to be made in certain countries, or that 70% of the value addition has to be done in the country that exports,” he says. “It's a cat and mouse game. The West will find other ways of placing restrictions on the Chinese.

An alliance on the rocks
In October, Chinese battery giant Build Your Dreams (BYD) formally entered the Pakistani market with two electric vehicles, partnering with the country’s largest private electricity producer to facilitate the expansion. The move came after the U.S. and Canada both decided to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicle imports, and the European Commission voted to raise its own tariffs by 35%.

Its expansion represents a boost to the business relationship between China and Pakistan at a time when both seem to be running out of friends – and when their own alliance has grown fraught.

Though China has long considered Pakistan a key part of its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, a series of recent attacks on Chinese nationals working in Pakistan has injected the relationship with tension. After an explosion at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport in October claimed the lives of two Chinese citizens, Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong called the attacks “unacceptable.”

Still, there is a sense that neither side can afford to downgrade their relationship.

Pakistan has fraught relations with all three of its other neighbors, while China has been accused of an increasingly hostile approach towards foreign businesses, driving down foreign direct investment.

“It’s an important and close partnership, albeit one that has stumbled in recent months,” says Michael Kugelman, who directs the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute. “In that regard, this EV plan could be not just an economic win, but also a confidence building measure.”

Economic win for who?
For China, Pakistan could be the key to tapping into the U.S. market, says Usman Qadir, senior research economist at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.

“If they are able to assemble their vehicles in Pakistan or a third country, then they can bypass tariffs and get into the market with their lower prices,” he says.

Pakistanis could benefit, too.

BYD and its local partner announced plans to build an assembly plant in Karachi by early 2026. They estimate that as many as half of the vehicles sold in Pakistan by 2030 will be electrified – by which time BYD hopes that its vehicles will make up a quarter of all sales.


-----

So far, the Chinese EVs launched in Pakistan have largely targeted the luxury market.

But whatever their long-term motive, it is clear that Chinese EV makers are having an impact; Japanese automakers, which have historically dominated the Pakistani market, have begun slashing their prices out of concern that they might lose ground.

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan Motorcycles - Facts & Data 2025 | MotorCyclesData

https://www.motorcyclesdata.com/2025/02/01/pakistan-motorcycles/

In 2024, although a bad start of the year, then recovered in the second half, 2-wheeler sales have been 1.3 million (+18.4%) but half a million far from the record.

The just born EVs segment is fast growing, reaching 46.364 sales (+123.4%) with new local start up joined by Yadeaand other chinese manufacturers.

Looking at the performance among the top manufacturers, the leader Honda reports sales up 15.5%, ahead of United Auto (+29.3%), Suzuki (+17.3%) and Road Prince (+13%).

[Riaz Haq]

Sazgar bets on e-rickshaws for Pakistan’s EV future - Rest of World

https://restofworld.org/2025/sazgar-e-rickshaws-pakistan-ev-future/

Sazgar will set the ground for other companies in making e-rickshaws as a primary public transport choice.

By KUNWAR KHULDUNE SHAHID
12 FEBRUARY 2025 • LAHORE, PAKISTAN

Since last year, Pakistan has accelerated its shift to electric vehicles, with BYD planning to set up a production plant and the government targeting 30% EV adoption for all new vehicles by 2030.
As Pakistan’s top rickshaw maker, Sazgar pioneered e-rickshaws and hopes to make them a mainstream transport option.
Scaling up for companies like Sazgar will require stronger government policies, financial support for drivers, and political stability.

Pakistan hurtled toward its electric future in 2024. In August, Chinese EV giant BYD said it would set up its first South Asian production plant in the country. Three months later, the Pakistani government unveiled a policy that aims to transition a third of all new vehicles to electric by 2030.

Meanwhile, several local companies hastened plans to launch and produce EVs in a market flooded with importedelectric cars from international brands such as Audi, BMW, and Hyundai.

A front-runner among the local EV makers was Sazgar Engineering Works, a Lahore-based automotive manufacturer best known as Pakistan’s largest rickshaw maker.

In January 2024, Sazgar, which has made conventional rickshaws since 2005, became the first company to receive a license to produce e-rickshaws in Pakistan. The company is betting on e-rickshaws to boost mass adoption of EVs in the country. Given its legacy in the sector, Sazgar is poised to lead Pakistan’s EV revolution, automobile experts told Rest of World.

“The company has the infrastructure and resources to introduce e-rickshaws in the local market on a large scale,” said Sulman Ali, editor at PakWheels, a digital automobile publication and marketplace. “Sazgar will set the ground for other companies in making e-rickshaws as a primary public transport choice.”

Through the last decade, Sazgar has held sway over 30% of Pakistan’s rickshaw market, which currently comprises over a million rickshaws and 40 competitors. The company produces up to 2,500 rickshaws every month — most of which run on traditional fuels. It also exports its rickshaws to 30 countries including Sri Lanka, Liberia, Qatar, the U.S., and Japan, Syed Hasnain Mehdi, Sazgar’s EV project manager, told Rest of World.

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan’s 22 GW Solar Shock: How a Fragile State Went Full Clean Energy - CleanTechnica

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/04/pakistans-22-gw-solar-shock-ho...


It’s more solar than Canada has installed in total. It’s more than the UK added in the past five years. And yet it didn’t make a blip in most Western media. While the U.S. continued its decade-long existential crisis about grid interconnection queues and Europe squabbled over permitting reforms, Pakistan skipped the drama and just bought the panels.

----------------------

How does a country once considered a textbook fragile state leapfrog into solar hyperscale? You can’t make sense of it without going back two decades. In the early 2000s, Pakistan was better known for insurgencies and instability than infrastructure upgrades. Terror attacks were frequent, electricity shortages were the norm, and governance was, to put it kindly, patchy. Political cycles flipped with the military’s mood, floods battered the countryside, and inflation hollowed out public services. Not exactly the backdrop for a clean tech success story.

But something changed. Slowly, unevenly, Pakistan started building institutional muscle. The terrorism that plagued the country for over a decade was brought under control through a combination of military operations and negotiated truces. Civilian governments, for all their dysfunction, managed peaceful handovers of power. The technocratic class—policy analysts, engineers, civil servants—began steering the country toward energy pragmatism. It wasn’t a revolution. It was governance on hard mode, with better outcomes.

----------------------

This isn’t just a solar story, though. Wind has been building quietly in the south for years, especially in the Gharo-Jhimpir corridor. Hydropower continues to play a big role, and bagasse from the sugar industry chips in some renewable electrons too. Battery storage is the next act, mostly in the form of hybrid inverters and lithium-ion packs tucked into homes and businesses. They aren’t grid-scale yet, but they’re everywhere you’d want resilience—factories avoiding outages, households tired of flickering bulbs. The pieces are in place for a distributed energy system that doesn’t wait for the grid to catch up. Which is good, because Pakistan’s grid is not remotely ready for this volume of variable generation. Utilities are already reeling from the revenue shock as high-value customers opt out of dependence. No one likes selling electrons when your best clients are making their own. That looming utility death spiral? It’s not theoretical in Lahore or Karachi.

---------------------

Pakistan’s electric vehicle transition is picking up momentum too, driven by a mix of foreign investment and homegrown innovation. Chinese companies have taken the lead in setting up large-scale operations, with firms like BYD announcing plans to open a production facility in Karachi and the ADM Group committing $350 million to build EV manufacturing capacity and install thousands of charging stations nationwide. These moves dovetail with Pakistan’s goal to convert 30% of all vehicles to electric by 2030.

But the real action is happening closer to the ground, where indigenous startups are rolling out electric two- and three-wheelers at a pace that could reshape urban mobility. Companies like Jolta Electric and Vlektra are assembling locally made e-motorcycles that target the country’s massive base of two-wheeler users—millions of whom rely on scooters and bikes for daily transport. With soaring petrol prices and worsening air quality in cities like Lahore and Karachi, these electric alternatives are fast becoming the obvious choice. The economics are simple: lower fuel costs, less maintenance, and in many cases, the ability to charge with rooftop solar. While car-scale EV adoption remains limited, the grassroots uptake of electric bikes and rickshaws—many of them assembled in Pakistan—is proving that the EV revolution here will likely be led from the bottom up.