Potential for Electric Motorcycle Conversion: More Suitable for Government Agencies

The government is continuously pushing to accelerate the ecosystem of battery-based electric motorised vehicles (KBLBB) in Indonesia. One of its major ambitions is to convert as many as 120 million units of conventional motorcycles into electric motorcycles.

However, this ambitious plan has elicited various responses from observers and automotive enthusiasts. One who has highlighted this is Bambang Setiawan Yudistira, or Ibeng as he is familiarly known, an electric motorcycle enthusiast from the EV Holic community.

Ibeng assesses that, reflecting on the effectiveness of previous conversion subsidies, the current conversion scheme should not be immediately imposed on the general public, but rather started with government-owned operational vehicles.

According to him, agency service vehicles have a mandatory obligation to follow state instructions, so the transition process would be far easier to control compared to encouraging the public voluntarily to modify their beloved motorcycles.

For the general public, Ibeng views the conversion process as less appealing in terms of economic value. He more strongly recommends a trade-in or exchange model as a more rational solution.

Furthermore, he provides solutions regarding the fate of the conventional motorcycles that will be withdrawn from the public under the trade-in scheme. At least there are two options that the government can take to minimise losses.

First, the government could partner with scrap metal vendors to recycle the components of the old motorcycles to gain additional profits. Second, those motorcycles could instead be converted by the government to become internal inventory assets.

“So internal inventory assets, rather than procuring new motorcycles every year, make it a conversion. In my opinion, that makes more sense,” he said.

This scheme is considered capable of suppressing the state budget expenditure for procuring new vehicles every year, while also serving as a real example from the government in successfully implementing the blue sky programme through electric vehicle conversion.