Time to build an EV conversion ecosystem at scale

In Bangladesh, buying an electric car is perfectly legal. However, turning the car you already own into one is not. This gap says something about how this country’s entire EV conversation has been built so far. Every headline on the EV push in the country is about new vehicles rolling off a line or through a port. That’s worth celebrating, but this disregards the vehicle owners who cannot afford to replace them. We essentially need to provide them a second pathway to make our transition into a greener future more inclusive. It’s time we seriously and committedly thought about establishing an EV conversion ecosystem at scale. Any sensible policy would recognise that retrofitting existing vehicles is a much more resourceful alternative to simply scrapping them.

This is not a fringe idea. The global EV conversion kit market is projected to reach nearly $32 billion by 2034. The retrofit powertrain segment alone was worth over $68 billion in 2024. Other countries have already built this industry at real scale. India offers a blueprint. Half a decade ago, in 2021, India’s Ministry of Road Transport and Highways issued guidelines with regard to the conversion of petrol and diesel vehicles into electric ones. To ensure safety and performance, the Automotive Research Association established strict technical criteria that all electric kits must meet before they can be legally installed. Delhi got one step ahead and allowed owners of banned older diesel and petrol vehicles to continue driving them on condition that they would have to be retrofitted with an approved electric kit. For greater motivation, they also announced a 50,000 rupees cash incentive for the first wave of owners who would convert.

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Nepal is another successful example. Nepal’s government first eased its ban on modifying a vehicle’s engine in 2022, only as a temporary exemption, then renewed it in 2025. This April, the cabinet agreed to build a permanent legal framework after Kathmandu University engineers and independent workshops proved that cars, vans, and even a bus could be converted safely. Neither country asks anyone to buy a new car. Both simply let people convert the ones they already have.

In Kenya, Opibus, a Nairobi-based company, began by converting the existing safari vehicles and utility trucks to electric power before it ever built anything from scratch. As its founder noted, fewer than 20 crore new vehicles are sold worldwide each year, while over a 100 crore are already on the road. We simply cannot replace the global fleet with new purchases only.

Bangladesh has done this before, and with success. When soaring petrol prices hit hard in the early 2000s, it responded by converting a massive share of its vehicle fleet to run on compressed natural gas (CNG). What is missing is not technical expertise or market demand, but a clear regulatory framework. The Electric Motor Vehicle Registration and Operation Guideline, 2023 mentions conversion only in passing. While it permits joint ventures for EV manufacturing and conversion, it completely fails to outline a defined, legal procedure for actually doing so. There is no defined process for converting an existing car, van, or three-wheeler, no kit certification standard, and no clarity on how a converted vehicle should be taxed.

Bangladesh can easily build this framework by borrowing from its neighbours. We need a safety certification process for conversion kits, lower advance income taxes for retrofitted cars, and an extension of the existing duty reliefs for EV manufacturers to set up conversion workshops. This won’t threaten new EV makers. Those who can afford a new car will still buy one. Conversion simply provides an option for the thousands who cannot.

The environmental case only strengthens this. An old, poorly maintained combustion engine is often the dirtiest thing on the road. Converting it removes the tailpipe emissions immediately, without the embodied carbon and cost of manufacturing an entirely new vehicle. A 2021 Dhaka University study found fossil fuel vehicles responsible for half of the capital’s air pollution. Conversion is the fastest, cheapest route to cleaner air that we currently need.

Bangladesh converted a nation of engines once already, out of necessity. It can be done again. The kits exist. The regulatory templates exist. The workshops and skilled hands already exist here. What is missing is a government decision to build the legal framework around them, and a private sector willing to treat this as seriously as it treats the new car showrooms. The greenest vehicle on the country’s roads five years from now might be the same one people already own.

The author acknowledges valuable insights and ideas from AKM Lutfur Rahman, an experienced transport director and automotive business leader.

Nazma Sultana manages the business development of Akij Renewable Energy and Automobiles Limited.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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