With air and noise pollution from fossil-fuel cars in largely overpopulated African cities approaching dangerous levels, there is a strong case for cleaner and quieter mobility options. Electric vehicles (EVs) represent a more environment-friendly alternative to internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). EVs cost more to acquire but are cheaper to maintain.
But how viable are EVs in African countries where electricity supply is a significant constraint? Sub-Saharan Africa’s total power generation capacity is less than that of South Korea. And even in South Africa, which accounts for the bulk of the continent’s capacity, power is sometimes rationed owing to aging infrastructure and mismanagement and thus increasingly unreliable. A dearth of charging infrastructure and enabling policies on the continent are also constraints.
Still, EVs are already being assembled or imported in a couple of African countries. There are currently about a thousand electric cars plying South African roads. In Kenya, a cab company operates an all-electric fleet. And South Korean automaker Hyundai now sells electric cars in Nigeria. Thus, there is evidence EVs could be viable on the continent. Achieving scale might take a while, however. Undoubtedly, government policies would be a key success factor. The article explores these insights in greater detail.
EVs are viable in African countries
In November 2020, Hyundai launched the assembly of its Kona EV model in Nigeria. Germany’s Volkswagen already assembles EVs in Rwanda, so does Hyundai in Ethiopia with its Ioniq model. Indigenous EV producers are also joining the fray. Uganda’s Kiira Motors and Ghana’s Kantaka are good examples.
Japanese automaker Nissan and German competitor BMW, which sell their respective EV models LEAF and i3 in South Africa, are jointly developing EV charging infrastructure across the country. This is a potentially successful public-private partnership (PPP) EV ecosystem model for the rest of the continent to emulate.
| EVs v ICEVs in Africa | |
| Pros | Cons |
| 40-70% potential fuel savings | Higher upfront costs |
| 9-17% more energy efficient | No significant impact on poverty alleviation |
| Reduced air & noise pollution | Less labour intensive, especially if imported |
| Reduced exposure to oil price volatility | Environmental pollution from battery disposal |
| Need for cleaner mobility options | Dearth of charging infrastructure |
| EVs are cheaper to maintain than ICEVs | Epileptic grid electricity supply |
| Overcomes fossil fuel scarcity constraint | Lack of enabling policies |
| Source: Dane (2014) & Pittaway (2019) | |
Some African cities are already experimenting with electric taxis. In January 2021, Kenyan electric taxi service Nopea Ride announced it would increase the size of its Nairobi fleet to a hundred by end-2021 from thirty currently. The planned expansion by Nopea Ride, which was launched by Finland’s EkoRent Oy in 2018, points to the potential of EVs as viable mobility solutions in African cities. That is even as there is as yet no public EV charging stations in Kenya.
Kenya is an exemplar for another key reason. More than 93 percent of Kenya’s electricity supply is from renewable sources. When EVs plug to electricity grids powered by renewable sources for charging purposes, their environmental impact is even more positive. Huge under-capacity of the energy infrastructure in many African countries provides an opportunity for a shift towards renewable sources.
Electric tuk tuks and motorcycles are also beginning to replace their fossil-fuel counterparts in some African cities. East Africa is leading the charge at the moment. But success there may encourage other regions. In Rwanda, for instance, the authorities want all motorcycles to be electric as soon as possible. Startups pushing the drive include Ampersand and Safi in Rwanda, ARC Ride and Ecobodaa in Kenya, and Bodawerk and Zembo in Uganda.
Faster charging and longer-lasting batteries would be key to the expected success of EVs. This is even more so in the African case. If EV batteries take too long to charge and are quick to discharge, their utility in African countries, where power is scarce and epileptic, diminishes significantly. Incidentally, new technologies are emerging that suggest interested African countries may not need to worry about weak and slow-to-charge batteries for too long.
Israeli start-up StoreDot, which has developed a technology that can power a flat EV battery to a 100 miles worth of charge in five minutes, plans a mass rollout by 2025. In partnership with oil major BP, which is also an investor, StoreDot plans to install its super-fast chargers in refitted BP filling stations. Thus, EV owners would be able to charge their batteries in about the same way and in as much time or less, as they would for filling the tanks of their ICEVs. A near-future reality of ultra-fast EV chargers in gas stations is an easily adaptable model for African countries.
Besides, the oft-cited constraint of weak African electricity grids fails to consider a significant off-grid ecosystem of standby fossil-fuel generators. 8 percent of African electricity generation was from back-up generators in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), with Nigeria accounting for almost half, generating 18 TWh of power from 9 GW of back-up generators. The IEA also notes that most of the back-up generation is by businesses, which incidentally are the premises from which potential EV owners would likely charge their batteries from. And even though they are not environment-friendly, the owners clearly have the wherewithal to switch to off-grid renewable sources like solar power if and when available.
Besides, interesting solutions to the seeming contradictory environment-friendliness of EVs plugging into dirty energy sources are already emerging in the African case. Since potential EV owners likely commute to work daily, solar-powered charging infrastructure in parking lots at their workplaces would be an environment-friendly solution to the dirty charging problem. Excess solar power from the charging parking lots could also be plugged to the electricity grid, earning income for owners, or used in their buildings and facilities, saving costs.
An edited version of this article was first published by Nanyang Business School’s NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies, Singapore. References, figures and tables are in the original article.
