This paper is part of a series that analyzes international experiences of electric mobility (e-mobility) adoption for stakeholders in Vietnam, and especially those in Da Nang, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City, each meant to represent a macro-region of the country.

Vietnam has experienced rapid socio-economic development in the last two decades, but as a result, air pollution, motorization, and fossil fuel consumption have all increased in its cities, causing public health and infrastructure concerns.

Road transport was the largest emitter in Vietnam’s transport sector in 2014, and it will continue to be so in 2030 under business-as-usual (BAU) scenarios. Under this context, e-mobility is a key measure to help the country meet its larger climate goals set out under the Paris Agreement and combat the rising negative impacts of the transport sector in its expanding cities.

E-mobility is a key emission mitigation measure for the transport sector. It refers to the electrification of vehicles that are intended for the movement of people and goods.

E-mobility presents a host of co-benefits, including energy storage through grid integration and the reduction of air and noise pollutions, but it also presents various challenges, such as grid impact and road safety.

E-mobility adoption depends on multistakeholder coordination and collaboration. Offering a pathway for key stakeholders to follow to achieve widescale e-mobility, an e-mobility roadmap guides national and local-level governments to establish targets, develop policies, and mobilize resources from different stakeholders.

The paper reviews 23 subnational case studies with various degree of e-mobility adoption progress across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. In additional to city-level case studies, provincial- and state-level case studies offer unique lessons learned when it comes to developing roadmaps with an EV industry focus. The case studies were selected based on criteria to best provide comparable lessons for EV adoption in Vietnamese cities.

This project is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.

 

Key Findings:

  • Compared to case study cities with e-mobility roadmaps, Vietnamese cities have similar contexts with other Asian cities, but they are surprisingly comparable to Californian cities in terms of the percentage of passenger trips taken on public transit.
  • Although the Southeast Asian cities examined in this paper do not have subnational e-mobility roadmaps, there are unique lessons that they can offer Vietnamese cities in terms of e-mobility adoption and other transport decarbonization solutions, such as electrifying inland water transport, improving public transport usage, and adopting other holistic measures to avoid and shift transport emissions.
  • Most case studies characterized as emerging EV adopter tend to favor roadmaps that specifically promote e-mobility uptake, charging, and manufacture, but Vietnamese cities have the special opportunity to break away from the observed pattern and opt for roadmaps with a boarder scope of climate action, air quality control, or sustainable modal shift.
  • There are a few instances of Global OEMs setting EV and battery plants in Southeast Asia, but Vietnam is a unique case where a local e-mobility OEM, Vinfast, is present and supplying EVs across different modes.
  • After its development, there will still be many barriers to effectively implement an e-mobility roadmap, but they can be remedied by a carefully crafted policy package targeting the appropriate e-mobility actors, such as EV consumers.

 

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