Pakistan’s electric scooter and bike market has effectively run out of stock as a combination of sharply rising petrol prices and growing consumer awareness pushes hundreds of thousands of riders toward electric alternatives faster than local assemblers and importers can keep up. Around 40,000 electric vehicles were sold across the country in April alone, with electric scooters accounting for 90 percent of that figure and electric bikes making up the remaining 10 percent, figures that reflect a significant acceleration in adoption compared to previous months.
The supply crunch has resulted in buyers waiting up to 30 days to receive their vehicles and paying advances of between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 15,000 per unit simply to secure an order. Popular models including the T5-L, Velax, and M3-H are facing the most acute shortages, as their Chinese-made completely knocked down component kits remain critically limited in the local market. Hamza Asad, Director of Sales and Marketing at Evee, said assemblers had already placed larger import orders with Chinese suppliers to address the shortage and that full availability of electric scooters and bikes across the country was expected to be restored by May 25 or June 1. Asad also noted that if government policies remained supportive, total electric vehicle sales could potentially reach 500,000 units by the end of December 2026. Syed Raza Mohsin, founder and Chief Executive of VLEKTRA, described the current situation as short-term market tightness caused by the petrol price hike and strong uptake through the government’s PAVE electrification programme, and said suppliers across the industry were actively increasing production capacity with the supply situation expected to normalise within two to three months.
The surge in demand is directly tied to the cost of conventional fuel. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif recently approved increases of Rs. 19.39 per litre for diesel and Rs. 6.51 per litre for petrol, pushing prices close to Rs. 400 per litre for both fuels. Petrol consumers are currently paying Rs. 153.55 per litre in combined taxes, levies, and margins, with the petroleum levy alone contributing more than Rs. 103 per litre to the total cost, alongside customs duty of Rs. 23.72, a climate levy of Rs. 2.50, and freight costs, company profits, and dealer commissions layered on top. Taxes account for roughly 32 percent of petrol prices and 21 percent of diesel, a burden that has made electric two-wheelers, which retail between Rs. 250,000 and Rs. 600,000, an increasingly rational economic choice for daily commuters. Industry stakeholders have also called on policymakers to allow commercial battery imports for five years at one percent sales tax and one percent customs duty, and to remove the paint shop requirement as a condition for obtaining an assembling licence, steps they say would lower market entry barriers for new manufacturers and help the supply side scale more quickly to meet the demand that has clearly materialised.
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