Carpocalypse Now? Vietnam’s soaring car ownership threatens to clog roads and air
Though a relatively new phenomenon, car ownership in Vietnam is becoming more and more common as the country's middle-class expands. However, as the four-wheeled traffic jams grow, so do concerns over the consequences of many more cars on our roads.
In 2020, just 5.7 per cent of Vietnamese households owned a car. Asia Perspective forecasts this figure will reach 9 per cent by 2025, and a whopping 30 per cent by 2030 – equivalent to the current level of India and the Philippines.
As well as a growing middle-class, favourable policies have helped drive this growth. For example, in December 2021, the Ministry of Finance announced a 50 per cent reduction in registration fees for domestically-assembled cars, and 100 per cent for electric cars.
The ministry forecasts that car sales will rise by 22.6 per cent each year from now until 2025, and by 18.5 per cent after that.
All of this seems like a net positive, indicators of a country on the up.
However, the explosion in car ownership may bring serious downsides.
Simply put, I am not convinced that the road infrastructure in Vietnam is ready to cope with the rapidly increasing number of four-wheeled vehicles on the road – at least not without major congestion.
Of course, Vietnamese cities aren’t alone in facing this problem.
In a bid to reduce traffic, in 1982 Athens imposed the Dactylius (ring) around its city centre. Cars can only enter the ring on certain days, dictated by the last digits of their number plate, limiting the number of cars in the city centre.
Similar policies have since been adopted by Bogota, Jakarta, Mexico City, San Jose, Santiago and Sao Paulo as a means to reduce both congestion and pollution.
Introducing a “road space rationing” policy in cities in Vietnam would undoubtedly be controversial. It may reduce the appeal of owning a car in the first place if it can only be used to enter certain parts of the city on certain days.
To get around this problem, Vietnam could exempt electric vehicles from congestion regulations. VinFast is Vietnam’s largest domestic car producer, and their recent pivot towards electric vehicles would complement this policy.
Vietnam is known around the world as the country of 100 million motorbikes. However, the country cannot become the country of 100 million, or even 50 million combustion-engine cars – not without congestion and pollution getting a lot worse.
Seán Nolan
Viet Nam News
Asia News Network
