The Country Where 76% of Cars Sold Are Electric

Majority of vehicles in Nepal are two-wheelers (motorbikes/scooters) or bicycles, as only 3% of households have a car and only 27% a two wheeler [0].

The motorbike market [1] tends to be Honda and Yamaha (manufactured in India) and Indian vendors like TVS and Bajaj, and this is where the most opportunity exists for Nepal.

A lot of the overproduction in Indian two wheeler EV industry is flowing into Nepal - especially TVS and Bajaj because of their factory complexes are barely 30 miles from the Nepal border, and connected to Nepal's NH1.

[0] - https://www.nepaldrives.com/only-3-1-nepalese-families-own-c...

[1] - https://www.statista.com/outlook/mmo/motorcycles/nepal

I saw an interesting interview where the gist of it was “if electric cars were first and gasoline came later, would anyone have switched to gasoline willingly?”

Obviously the early history of automobiles did include electric vehicles but we are more talking about the hypothetical of a reasonably modern vehicle, not the early electric vehicles that had more downsides versus gasoline.

If the vast majority of people were driving EVs right now, would they voluntarily switch to gasoline if it was suddenly a new option on the market?

The point was that your gains by going gasoline are so limited and the drawbacks are many.

The conversation goes like: you’re telling me the only advantage I’m getting is that I can fuel it up faster? But now I have a more complex machine, I can’t add fuel at home, it uses more energy overall and costs more to run, needs more maintenance, it’s louder, it performs worse (usually slower), has less room for passengers.

In a country with a heavy amount of motorbike use, electric vehicles must be a godsend for the urban noise and pollution reduction.

I guess its mostly scooters? But Denmark, Sweden and Norway are also all above 80% and growing and here its mainly cars.