Electric vehicles in Africa: what’s taking so long?

In sub-Saharan Africa, high levels of particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution from vehicle tailpipe emissions cause poor health, developmental stunting and even death. Vehicle emissions also contribute to global warming.

Electric vehicles could help solve these problems but they’ve been slow to take off in the region . The continent’s biggest economy, South Africa, had only about a thousand electric vehicles by 2022 . We are specialist transport engineers whose research has focused on electric vehicles and road freight transport in sub-Saharan Africa.

In our work, we look at how electric vehicles could contribute to reducing emissions in the region, and what is standing in the way of electrifying transport. One of the reasons for low uptake is the high cost of electric vehicles. They also have limited range, and their batteries are slow to charge: a problem for long distance or frequent driving.

The inability of countries to generate and distribute enough clean electricity is also a barrier to electrifying vehicles. Just over half of all electricity in the region comes from burning fossil fuels . Powering electric vehicles with electricity generated by burning fossil fuels wouldn’t necessarily reduce carbon emissions.

However, the roll-out of electric motorcycles and small public transport vehicles has already begun. If all vehicles could be made locally, using clean energy, there would be tremendous economic benefits for the region. Transitioning to electric mobility requ.