Ten years ago, a charismatic Indonesian minister called Dahlan Iskan made it his mission to develop a domestic electric vehicle (EV) industry. It was supposed to boost the economy, clean up Indonesia’s air and combat the climate crisis.<\/b><\/p>\n
But things did not go according to plan. First, Iskan crashed one electric sports car into a cliff on a test drive. Then one of his lead engineers, Dasep Ahmadi, was sentenced to seven years in prison for wasting state money, after his EVs were judged not fit for the road.<\/p>\n
For several years afters this conviction, Indonesia\u2019s entrepreneurs were too scared to go near the industry, leaving drivers with a choice between polluting domestic models or expensive imported EVs.<\/p>\n
“After [Ahmadi’s] case, the research programme relatively stopped”, said Agus Purwadi, an EV researcher at Indonesia’s prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n
Transport accounts for some 28%<\/a> of Indonesia’s energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution kills an estimated 120,000 Indonesians a year<\/a>. Although most Indonesians still get around by motorbike, demand for cars is booming, particularly in major cities. Just 0.15% of cars sold<\/a> in Indonesia in 2020 were electric.<\/p>\n “If you walk in [Jakarta] for half an hour you will feel the pollution from the vehicles,” said Julius Adiatma, a Jakarta-based EV researcher at the Institute for Essential Services Reform. “You can see the smoke, from the breathing you can feel it, the smell of the air is not fresh”.<\/p>\n This week, the International Energy Agency said that, if the world is to reach net zero emissions by 2050, then 60% of global car sales should be electric by 2030. Indonesia has a long way to go.<\/p>\n Iskan came to prominence as the football-mad editor of the Java Post<\/em> in the 1980s, with a reputation for humility and a youthful demeanour which he attributes to the transplant of a 21-year old\u2019s liver.<\/p>\n He gained popularity by prioritising Indonesian, not foreign, football in his newspapers. He paid for the food of his local team\u2019s fans when they travelled to Jakarta for games – and damages when they smashed up trains<\/a>.<\/p>\n