Name: Can electric bikes save Vietnam's most polluted cities? - Asia Specific podcast, BBC World Service
Uploaded: 2026-01-30T15:55:36.000Z
Duration: 20 min 30 s
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What Vietnam is trying to do is to kind of copy the success of Chinese EV makers.

I, I'll bet my, I bet good money that they, they wouldn't.

But I, I would like to be proven wrong because who knows?

It's one of the most polluted cities in the world.

You might be thinking Delhi, Jakarta, or maybe Bangkok.

But it's actually Vietnam's capital, Hanoi.

The country's biggest city, Ho Chi Minh in the south isn't that much better.

So does Vietnam's government have the answer to clear the air, it's betting on one of the boldest electric vehicle plants in the world, pushing to get more than 70 million riders to switch to electric bikes starting in Hanoi.

China has moved fast to encourage people to drive electric cars.

But can Vietnam pull off similar success with a two wheeler?

I'm Marie Ko in Singapore and this is Asia specific from the BBC World Service.

Twice a week we bring you Asia Pacific stories unpacked by those who know them best.

Today I have Sen Nguyen, a BBC senior journalist who grew up in Vietnam, as well as Nick Marsh, a business reporter based in Singapore.

But you've been to China to cover the electric car industry, haven't you?

Before we get to e Bikes, I want you to, I guess paint the picture for us because motorbikes are huge part of day to day life in Vietnam, aren't they?

It's been months since I've been on my bike and I miss it so much.

Being able to ride a motorbike, it has this profound sense of freedom that makes me very miss it a lot.

Now when it comes to motorbike is the cornerstone of Vietnam popular culture.

When it comes to dating, it is the image of a guy pulling out on the street with his motorbike, picking up a girl and she would wrap her hands around his waist as he speed up on the street again.

I guess when it comes to public demonstration, which is this kind of thing that authorities kind of want to put a tight lid on here in Vietnam, the only acceptable and disorderly sort of public demonstration is called dibao.

In Vietnamese it means to storm the street.

That is when people would pour out on the street when the national football team has a victory and they would pull out on the street with their motorbikes, drumming their pots and blowing their plastic horns and yelling vietnam Wardig.

And it's not just a means of transportation.

And you have internal migrants selling stuff on the motorbikes and street vendors are everywhere using it to go through the streets.

hanson actually described capitalism in Vietnam as one, as running on two wheels, which I love because it accurately depicts the economy that we have around motorbikes.

Now, cultural sentiment aside, motorbikes have been deemed as a major source of air pollution.

And with that, EVs come into the picture and this is where the heart of debate is.

I mean, I have to say, though, my parents used to live in Ho Chi Minh City.

And the first time I got there and I was following a Vietnamese person and she was like, follow me.

I was like, no, I'm not going to cross the street.

And she literally went and she had to actually, literally come back to get me and hold my hands.

But it's an amazing picture and I think that's kind of the iconic image that many people have of big cities in Vietnam.

Because going to Vietnam is like running the gauntlet, isn't it?

And you know, you don't think you're going to make it to the other side of life.

What you just said there about the mopeds.

I'm half Italian and I was born there and I used to go.

The going into the streets, like beeping the horns when you win at football.

The, you know, the dates, you know, the, you know, the girl on the back of the moped and all of that.

I think there's a crossover that we didn't.

And yes, similar, similar levels of danger as well, crossing the streets, depending on which cities.

Yeah, getting hate mailed already on that.

But Sam mentioned air pollution and I think that's what's pushing the Vietnamese government to get people to hopefully switch to E bikes.

Nick, you covered electric cars in China and the Chinese government did something similar, you know, encouraging people to drive electric cars instead of normal gasoline cars.

No, well, look, I'd love to say it was about air pollution.

Marie Kobert, you know, the cynical business reporter in me often wins out.

It's a convenient byproduct of developing your electric vehicle industry.

obviously we'll talk about it later, the reason it wanted to become and eventually became the absolute world leader in electric vehicles was an economic one.

We know that these things don't happen overnight.

So you've got to go back right to the beginning of this century to see the foundations of this blueprint.

And they essentially, the leadership at the time said, look, we've become brilliant at manufacturing, we can make stuff for anyone, but

we don't want to become a country in the middle income trap.

And that's basically another way of saying, well, our standard of living is rising, wages are rising, but

we're not innovating, we're not doing anything cutting edge.

We can't keep up with the advanced economies.

And the leadership at the time said the future is ev.

We can't compete with the Western brands or the Japanese when it comes to the petrol and the diesel powered engines, but

So they invested heavily into becoming the world leaders and they did.

I think that's where Japanese carmakers kind of, I'm not sure whether missed out is the right word, but

They didn't think that electric cars would go big in developing economies.

You know, if you're trying to get people to drive your cars in Africa, you know, would people have the electric plug to charge it?

But let's talk about who actually make those E bikes because Chinese companies also make them, but

in Vietnam, Vinfast is huge, isn't it then?

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