Indonesia’s Prabowo plans electric conversion for 120 million motorcycles, but experts say challenges abound
Indonesia’s Prabowo plans electric conversion for 120 million motorcycles, but experts say challenges abound
President Prabowo Subianto’s programme promises long-term savings on fuel imports and subsidies, but limited infrastructure and low consumer confidence may hinder ambition, say analysts.
JAKARTA: Riding a motorcycle in Jakarta’s rush hour traffic can be an assault on the senses: deafening engines roaring on all sides while thick, nauseating fumes hang heavy in the air.
At traffic junctions of gridlocked streets, bikes often cram so tightly together that a brush with a searing exhaust pipe can sometimes burn another rider’s skin.
But President Prabowo Subianto has a vision to make this daily chaos a thing of the past. Petrol-powered motorcycles, a dominant mode of transport in the archipelago, could be converted into electric ones as part of a sweeping push towards energy independence.
“The whole plan is to convert all of our motorcycles to electric,” Prabowo said in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel on Mar 25. He added that other vehicles, including cars, trucks and tractors must also run on electric power.
“So later, wealthy people who own Lamborghinis or Ferraris can go ahead and use petrol. They’ll just have to pay the global price.”
The remarks came as the world is reeling from the United States-Israel war on Iran which has caused global oil prices to soar by between 50 per cent and 100 per cent of what they were before the conflict.
The rising prices prompted Prabowo to form a government task force on energy transition on Mar 5 with the goal of making Indonesia less reliant on fuel imports and becoming energy self-sufficient.
Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia is leading the task force.
“Our 120 million motorcycles that run on petrol, we will try to gradually convert them to electric motorcycles,” Bahlil said that day.
“The president earlier conveyed that the maximum timeframe is three to four years, or even faster if possible.”
According to the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Indonesia imports around 1 million barrels of oil per day. Between 20 per cent and 25 per cent passes through the Strait of Hormuz which has been closed since the conflict began in late February.
“For a country as big as ours to be independent, to survive, we must be self-sufficient particularly in the field of energy,” Prabowo said on Apr 9.
“One way is through electrification … so we don’t use too much fossil fuel.”
The president said his administration plans to build 100 gigawatts worth of solar farms and shut down 13 diesel power plants over the next two years, which he said will cut Indonesia’s fuel imports by 200,000 barrels per day.
But his ultimate goal is to stop importing fuel altogether. To get there, Indonesia plans to convert 120 million internal combustion engine motorcycles into electric ones in three to four years.
The government is also preparing a regulatory framework to one day require all motorcycles sold in Indonesia be electric, thereby compelling owners of existing internal combustion engine bikes to convert.
Experts said the motorcycle conversion target and deadline is highly ambitious, pointing to the technical hurdles the government must overcome before conversions can be carried out at such a scale.
“The number of authorised workshops is no more than 50, and even those are concentrated in Greater Jakarta,” Fabby Tumiwa, executive director of Jakarta-based think tank Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), told CNA.
Meanwhile, electric vehicle (EV) adoption in Indonesia is still low. According to data from the Ministry of Transportation, only 123,000 of the country’s 20 million cars and 236,000 of its 139 million motorcycles are electric.
“Many are still sceptical about the practicality and reliability of EVs. Even with government subsidies, not everyone will be willing to convert their motorcycles,” Fahmy Radhi, an economist from Indonesia’s Gadjah Mada University, told CNA.
“This is ultimately about changing consumer thinking and behaviour, not just a technical issue.”
KEY LESSONS FROM PAST PROGRAMMES
Prabowo’s predecessor, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, also rolled out a similar motorcycle conversion programme in 2023 and 2024, offering subsidies of between 7 million and 10 million rupiah (US$408 to US$583) for conversion kits, which included batteries, motors and other components.
Without subsidies, conversions typically cost between 15 million and 17 million rupiah.
Motorcycles were chosen because the cost of electrification is considerably less than for cars, where electrification typically costs between 100 million and 150 million rupiah.
But the motorcycle conversion programme failed to gain traction.
The Ministry of Energy initially targeted 50,000 conversions in 2023 and 150,000 in 2024. In reality, just 145 units were converted in 2023 and 1,615 in 2024, CNN Indonesia cited a senior ministry official as saying in December 2024.
Bebin Djuana, a retired automotive executive and author on Indonesia’s car industry, said there are key lessons from the earlier attempt.
“There were many supporting factors that were not yet in place,” he said.
“Each vehicle model is different - you can’t apply a one-size-fits-all conversion. A model determines what motor to use, what battery, and where to place them. We need trained workers to handle conversions, but where is the training?”
Skilled manpower remains scarce. By the end of 2024, only 39 workshops had received certification to participate in the government’s conversion programme - and most were small operators.
“If one workshop can handle about 1,000 units a year, we would need around 20,000 conversion workshops nationwide to reach the 20 (million) to 30 million conversions per year the Prabowo government is aiming for,” said Fabby of IESR.
But perhaps the biggest hurdle that remains is consumer confidence.
“People are interested because they can save on fuel. But consumers don’t jus