Electric mobility investments: Insights from power-transport coupling from developing countries

Abstract

Electric mobility seems promising for the decarbonisation of the power and transport sectors. Nonetheless, making investment decisions on electric mobility in developing countries remains topical in policy and academic debate. This paper contributes to the transport and power sector coupling debate to understand investment decision-making on electric mobility. We propose a framework and identify developing countries that could be considered for private-sector investment in electric mobility. We validate our framework with case studies on investments in electric mobility in China, Brazil, India, Colombia, Türkiye and Chile. We argue that developing countries with wholesale power markets, and wholesale and retail power markets could attract investment in electric mobility, albeit with a proliferation of low total cost of ownership electric mobility investment options such as two and three-electric wheelers and investments such as electric buses perceived to have notable contributions to achieving environmental/climate objectives. Thus, we argue that our framework and analyses could be helpful for policymakers and stakeholders in the power and transport sectors to identify and select developing countries for private sector-led electric mobility investment.