Out with the old

Vietnam has tens of millions of motorbikes and mopeds. And from July 2026, some of them won’t be allowed on the main ring road in Hanoi unless they’re electric. Ho Chi Minh city could follow suit.

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Hanoi has some of the world’s most polluted air and the Government has signalled a big shift towards electrification. 

“A second phase, set to begin in January 2028, will expand the ban to a wider area and include all fossil-fuel two-wheelers, while also restricting some gasoline-powered cars." 

While some in Vietnam are concerned they won’t be able to afford the switch, as Chris Nelder said in the 10th anniversary edition of the Energy Transition Show, one of the interesting things about the adoption of electric vehicles and solar is that developing nations are leading the charge. Many of them don't have climate policies; they’re doing it primarily for the economics. And China, which is by far the world’s biggest manufacturer of electric gear, is sitting pretty. Those who have travelled to China recently often comment on the difference between the loud, smog filled cities of the past and the quiet and much cleaner cities of the present, which is another major benefit of this switch.

Electric buses are also an important part of the transport equation in these places and, in Australia, retrofit specialists Jaunt (which recently won a design award for its electric Land Rover platform) has just converted its biggest vehicle yet, a Filipino Jeepney.

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“There are nearly 200,000 'Jeepneys' in the Philippines—a completely unique and culturally significant form of public transport. But most run on old, inefficient engines that produce high emissions. In collaboration with Tembo e-LV, we built a proof-of-concept electric version that’s now on its way to Manila.”

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The Atlantic reckons America - and most of the developed world -  is missing out on a lot of the best micro electric innovations. But it’s clear there is also a lot of demand for smaller, cheaper electric vehicles, as seen by the 880% year-on-year increase in BYD sales in the UK. 

“BYD officially launched in the UK in March 2023 and sells several models, including the ATTO 3, Dolphin and Seal. It has become the UK’s fastest growing car brand since then, partially due to a highly competitive pricing strategy. Its entry-level Dolphin Surf EV has an RRP starting from £18,650, compared to the Tesla Model 3 at £37,345.” 

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The UK government has committed to banning sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030.

Optimism despite everything

A new report from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit looking at what has happened in the ten years since the Paris Agreement was signed tells an ‘unapologetically positive story about climate’, according to one of the authors, John Lang.

• Check out the full infographic here

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As he summarised: 

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☀️The sun has won. Solar bet IEA forecasts by 1500% and became the 'cheapest electricity in history' 6 years after The Economist said it was uneconomic.

🌬️Wind kept pace. Added capacity last year was triple 2015 forecasts. Renewables now beat coal on share of generation, pushing clean electricity over 40%.

💰 Investment in clean energy now beats fossil fuels 2:1, with the gap wider in the 'Big Four': the US, EU, China and India.

💰 Like in the UK, China's clean energy econony is outpacing the wider economy threefold, now worth 10% of GDP.

👷‍♀️ Globally, the gap between jobs in clean energy (36m) and fossil fuels (32m) is widening.

🚗Electric vehicles hit 20% of new car sales globally in 2024, years ahead of schedule.

🌍Net zero went mainstream. Once an obscure science concept, targets now cover 83% of the global economy, most in law or policy. Despite Trump's norm wrecking, 19 G20 nations have net zero targets for midcentury.

🏛️Climate framework laws — the institutional architecture for long-term climate action — have more than tripled, up from 20 to 70.

Most importantly, emissions have plateaued: since 2015, annual CO2 emissions (inc. LUC) are up just 1.2%, compared with 18.4% in the decade before Paris. We are at peak or near peak global emissions.

None of this means job done or that it's ever going to be plain sailing (exhibit A: the recent IMO shipping decision). Emissions still have to enter a sustained, structural decline. And renewables growth has to beat demand growth year upon year. But these shifts have laid the foundations for real-economy momentum to bend the emissions curve, save trillions, wildly increase system efficiency and cut Putin's leverage.

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Fit and well

It’s very clear now that if you're building new - whether that’s a small home or a big building - it pays to go electric and pop some panels on the roof. And America’s first all-electric hospital is set to open in California in December. 

The hospital has solar panels on its parking buildings and is importing green electricity, rather than relying on gas as it does in its older buildings. 

“The decision UCI Health leaders made was ‘forward thinking,’ hedging their bets that natural gas would increase in price in the future."

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The “hospital of the future” will still rely on diesel generators as back up, mostly because the decision to use them was made back in 2020 when batteries were not as economical. Any decisions being made about resilience now should be looking closely at batteries, and as we saw during the storms in New Zealand, solar and batteries should be part of more people’s emergency kits so they can keep things running and remove the mad scramble for generators. 

With new hospitals sorely needed in some parts of New Zealand and some being planned, we hope there is a similar focus on ‘healthcare without harm’ here.

Everything, everywhere, one at a time

Grid-scale batteries are a booming business right now and home batteries are going crazy in Australia, with over 100,000 installs since the subsidy was announced. But what about small batteries in all our appliances? That’s what Pila Energy is pushing. 

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The batteries come in at around $1400 per kwH so it’s not too far above the national average price quoted by this My Solar Quotes survey. If you can do it yourself and take it with you when you move, then it could have potential. 

Induction start-up Impulse Labs also shares the view that because we replace our appliances so often, putting batteries into all of them rather than relying on one big install is likely to get more storage into homes over time. 

On a roll

Of course, there is also the question of whether focusing on the big batteries on wheels known as EVs are a better option when it comes to storage. These batteries are much bigger than home batteries, and have the potential to run homes and provide energy back to the grid. And, in Australia, V2G took another major step forward as BYD agreed to provide warranty support for 50 Amber customers taking part in a trial. 

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“Warranty concerns have been one of the final barriers holding back V2G adoption in Australia. With BYD's backing, customers can now participate with confidence knowing their EV battery is covered.

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Early results are impressive - one NSW household earned $300 overnight, while a Victorian household made $257 in a day. The trial is proving EVs can act as giant "batteries on wheels" to power homes, slash energy bills, and earn from selling stored energy back to the grid.”

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Louvre manoeuvre 

For those with more specific transport needs, German company Bocker has turned lemons into lemonade and used its unintentional involvement in the Louvre heist as a marketing opportunity.

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The company took the opportinity to promote its quiet electric ladder and apparently a number of true crime experts and energy geeks are trying to figure out whether the criminals were environmentally conscientious enough to chose the electric truck as well.

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