Bangladesh’s EV transition stalls: systemic gaps in charging networks, price barriers, and neocolonial energy dependencies

Bangladesh’s EV slowdown is not a technical failure but a systemic one, rooted in colonial energy legacies, IMF austerity, and the dominance of global battery oligopolies.

The country’s rickshaw culture—an indigenous, low-cost mobility model—offers a path to leapfrog lithium dependence, yet state policy favors high-tech imports that deepen trade deficits and climate vulnerability. Historical parallels to 1970s oil shocks and Latin American debt crises reveal how structural adjustment programs have consistently undermined Global South energy sovereignty, a pattern now repeating with EV adoption. Meanwhile, marginalized voices—rickshaw pullers, women drivers, and Adivasi communities—are excluded from the narrative, despite their potential to lead a just transition. The solution lies in redirecting fossil fuel subsidies to pedal-electric hybrids, solar microgrids, and local battery innovation, while centering indigenous knowledge and cooperative models. Without this systemic shift, Bangladesh risks entrenching a ‘colonial energy trap’ where EV growth serves corporate interests rather than public welfare.