Pakistan is preparing to build a nationwide network of public charging points for electric vehicles, with fast chargers planned roughly every 50 kilometres along the country’s major highways and motorways. The plan, laid out by the Ministry of Industries and Production in a written reply to the National Assembly, aims for around 3,000 public charging facilities across the country by 2030 under the New Energy Vehicle Policy 2025-30.
The ministry was answering a question from lawmaker Malik Shakir Bashir Awan, who had asked what the government was doing to support the growth of electric transport. In its reply, it said the first phase of the rollout would put 40 fast-charging stations along motorways and selected stretches of the National Highway, the N-5, which links Karachi with the north of the country. Over time, the gaps between charging points on major routes are to shrink to about 50 kilometres, so that drivers are never far from a place to recharge.
The wider network will not rely on fast chargers alone. The policy also provides for Level 2 and Level 1 charging points, which charge more slowly but are cheaper to install and suited to parking areas and workplaces, and for battery-swapping stations designed for electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers, the vehicles that dominate Pakistan’s roads. Existing fuel stations will be encouraged to add charging units of their own, turning the country’s established network of petrol pumps into part of the electric future.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
To draw private money into the rollout, the government is offering charging-station operators a dedicated commercial electricity tariff and faster electricity connections, alongside public-private partnerships that can include viability gap funding, a mechanism that helps make commercially uncertain projects viable. The interest is already there: the ministry said that last year some 3,800 investors had shown interest in setting up charging stations across Pakistan, a sign that the business case is beginning to convince the market even before the full network exists.
The charging plan sits inside a much larger push to electrify transport. Under the same policy, buyers of electric two-wheelers are being offered a subsidy of Rs80,000 and buyers of electric three-wheelers up to Rs400,000, while the government is targeting 30 per cent of all new vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 and around 2.2 million electric vehicles on the road by the same year. Officials have also argued that the shift will cut fuel imports, save foreign exchange and reduce urban air pollution, all long-standing pressures on the economy.
Another part of the policy looks beyond the vehicles themselves to what happens when their batteries wear out. The ministry said work is under way on a regulatory framework and a nationwide network for collecting, transporting, reusing, dismantling and recycling end-of-life batteries, particularly lithium-ion batteries. That part of the plan matters because a charging network without a way to handle old batteries would simply move an environmental problem from the road to the scrapyard.
The policy also aims to build more of the electric vehicle industry at home rather than importing it wholesale. The government wants to encourage domestic manufacturing, technology transfer and joint ventures, with local production of motors, battery packs, power electronics, chargers and wiring systems, and the Engineering Development Board is overseeing commitments on local value addition from companies entering the market.
Whether the 2030 target is met will ultimately come down to execution on the ground, not announcements in parliament. Charging points every 50 kilometres would remove the single biggest worry holding back intercity electric travel, the fear of running out of power between cities, and the first 40 fast chargers on motorways and the N-5 will be the real test of whether the timetable holds. If they appear on schedule and private investors follow, Pakistan’s highways could look very different within a few years; if they stall, the country’s electric transition will remain largely a city story.
