Electric vehicles (EVs) are often presented as a straightforward climate solution. Replace petrol and diesel vehicles with battery-powered alternatives, reduce emissions, cut fuel imports, and create a greener future. Yet the reality is far more complex.

The electric vehicle transition presents a paradox: EVs can strengthen energy security, reduce urban pollution, and create new industries, but only if governments simultaneously address electricity infrastructure, financing, supply chain resilience and consumer affordability. Without these supporting pillars, EV adoption risks becoming an expensive policy aspiration rather than an economic transformation.

Pakistan stands at precisely this crossroads.

The country already possesses a policy foundation. Pakistan's National Electric Vehicle Policy recognises that transportation is responsible for approximately 43% of airborne emissions and identifies EVs as a mechanism to reduce oil imports, strengthen industrial development and utilise idle electricity generation capacity. The policy envisioned substantial EV penetration targets for cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks while highlighting the potential economic savings from reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions.

Albeit, the global EV market of 2026 is very different from the one envisioned when Pakistan's policy was introduced in 2019.

China now dominates global EV production and battery manufacturing. The EU is embedding EVs within broader industrial and climate strategies. Singapore is integrating EV deployment with smart urban infrastructure and digital mobility planning. Meanwhile, global supply chains have become........

© The Express Tribune