Millions of motorcycles weave through the streets of Hanoi every day, exacerbating the city’s long-term air pollution problem. In the face of strong public opposition, the Vietnamese government’s original plan to ban gasoline-powered motorcycles has been greatly scaled back, and authorities are now shifting efforts to promote electric motorbikes.
According to AFP, the Vietnamese government announced a plan last year aiming to prohibit gasoline motorcycles from entering the 26-square-kilometer downtown area of Hanoi in order to improve the increasingly dire air pollution.
However, due to backlash from motorcycle riders and slow progress in building charging stations, authorities have reduced the ban’s scope to just 11 streets covering 0.5 square kilometers.
Even so, this “low emission zone” measure is only limited to certain hours on Friday evenings and weekends, during which gasoline motorcycles are banned from passing. Whether or not the plan can be implemented remains uncertain.
These concessions highlight the significant challenges Vietnam faces in pushing for a transition to electric vehicles.
Nguyen Phuong Anh, a 24-year-old Hanoi resident and researcher who normally commutes by gasoline motorcycle, admitted that almost everyone opposes the ban.
She said that although she suffers from chronic nasal congestion caused by air pollution and acknowledges the seriousness of the problem, she is still unwilling to switch to an electric motorbike.
"Electric motorbikes require frequent maintenance, and there are risks I may not fully understand," she said.
This month, Hanoi city officials refused to sign the scaled-back ban proposal, postponing the decision to June and casting doubt on the planned July rollout.
Vietnamese analyst Nguyen Khac Giang pointed out that when the government’s legitimacy is threatened, authorities often choose to back down, which is one of the reasons behind the relaxation of the gasoline motorcycle ban.