Prabowo Wants Vehicles in Indonesia to Use Electricity, Petrol for the Wealthy

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - President Prabowo Subianto has revealed his grand plan to convert vehicles in the country from petrol-powered to electric energy. He believes this conversion will save the nation money and reduce dependence on fuel oil supplies. The petrol-to-electric vehicle conversion plan will apply to all vehicles, from motorcycles and cars to trucks. Petrol will still be available for consumption by the upper middle class. This is because petrol prices will follow fluctuations in global oil prices. “All our motorcycles will be converted to electric motorcycles. All cars, all trucks, all tractors must use electric power, so those who are rich and own Lamborghinis or Ferraris can use petrol, just pay the world price, even if it’s US$200, while for others we’ve simulated that riding an electric motorcycle reduces costs to just 20%, one-fifth, so this is our game changer,” he stated in the YouTube show ‘Presiden Prabowo Menjawab!!’, quoted on Wednesday (25/3/2026). In addition, Prabowo is determined to expand solar power plants. He targets Indonesia to have at least 100 gigawatts of solar power generation within the next year. With this plan, Indonesia will no longer rely on diesel-powered electricity plants. “We still have 13 GW of diesel power plants, which we will shut down. No more electricity from diesel, it’s too expensive, so in the near future we can provide 13 GW, very soon we won’t use diesel-solar for electricity,” he emphasised. The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Bahlil Lahadalia previously revealed plans to accelerate the conversion of conventional motorcycles to battery electric engines. For this, the government will provide subsidy programmes as before. This was stated by Bahlil after a limited meeting at the State Palace regarding the acceleration of clean energy implementation, such as building 100 Gigawatt solar power plants and converting 120 million motorcycles to battery electric engines, on Thursday (5/3/2026). “Something like that (subsidies), but we’ll find a good formulation,” said Bahlil, when asked about the acceleration programme that the government will provide. Previously, the government also provided subsidies for converting 200,000 electric motorcycles, which ended in 2024. However, the Rp 7-10 million subsidy was not continued by the government. According to Bahlil, the subsidy programme value will be cheaper than before. He estimated the subsidy at Rp 5-6 million per unit, because the technology is now much cheaper.