Electric vehicles (EVs), such as electric cars, motorbikes, three-wheelers, and trucks, are taking off across Africa. The countries that actively encourage the adoption of EVs will be first to reap the technology’s benefits for society and the economy.
In the past two years, EV sales in Africa have surged. For example, electric car sales across the continent rose from four thousand units in 2023 to twenty-five thousand in 2025. The trend is particularly clear in East Africa. Ethiopia alone accounts for a third of the entire continent’s imports of EV parts from China. According to the Energy for Growth Hub (which maintains an Africa EV Readiness and Impact Index), Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as countries such as South Africa and Rwanda, are among the readiest for EV adoption. Electric motorbikes are being adopted the fastest. Spiro, a manufacturer, estimates it already has 114,000 electric motorbikes on African roads, which it says is a 68 percent increase since last December. Electric motorbikes will likely continue to outpace electric cars in the years to come, as both they and their charging stations are less expensive upfront than cars.
The EVs hitting the roads in Africa are increasingly being assembled locally—albeit from Chinese components. Local assembly, by skirting tariffs on imported vehicles and high shipping costs, is lowering costs associated with the vehicles, prompting more orders. Rising numbers of new, locally assembled EVs defy the usual expectation that new technology reaches Africa last, via imports of secondhand products from Europe and Asia.
Two factors explain this shift.
First, EVs are making financial sense. EVs cost more upfront but are cheaper to run and maintain than combustion vehicles: According to a manufacturer’s estimates, electric motorbikes cost up to 40 percent less to operate, saving users about two dollars per day. However, one nonprofit leader in Kenya estimated that private EV owners spend about four dollars a month on charging versus twenty-seven dollars on fuel. The savings could quickly increase, as the Iran war continues to put pressure on the oil industry and send fuel prices upward. To be sure, EVs carry a significant upfront cost, but the private sector is developing solutions, such as leasing and pay-as-you-go arrangements, to make them more accessible to consumers in key markets. Going forward, more could be done to lower the cost of EV loans through de-risking.
But beyond that, policy frameworks designed to drive EV adoption in key African markets are starting to bear fruit. Ethiopia banned combustion vehicle imports in 2024, a bold move which, though unevenly enforced, helped kickstart EV imports. Rwanda banned the registration of conventional moto-taxis in 2025. No Western country has yet gone as far. Other African nations have also cut or eliminated import duties on EVs and EV parts.
EVs bring more than just savings
Beyond individual savings for African commuters, the transition to EVs will benefit public finances, jobs, public health, and the environment.
Outside of South Africa and Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa has few operating oil refineries, so countries import most of their barrels. Ethiopia alone spends $4.2 billion a year on fuel imports, a major reason its government is backing EVs. The sooner vehicles powered by cheap electricity become available, the sooner African governments can spend less on expensive imports and also phase out fuel subsidies that are straining public finances, as Ethiopia has already begun to do.
Additionally, growth across EV assembly startups can create local manufacturing jobs. And though they currently rely on Chinese-made components, local assembly startups could increase demand for locally assembled EV components, multiplying the impact on jobs and Africa’s value chains. The fact that Africa is rich in battery-related minerals could help convince Asian manufacturers to pilot local factories.
Finally, the environmental and health public benefits of electrifying transportation are hard to overstate in densely populated African cities with high air pollution.
Remaining EV obstacles are easier to surmount than they seem
Since EVs require reliable power, the poor state of many national power grids is a short-term obstacle to their development. Even EV leader Ethiopia provides electricity to only about half of its 126 million people. And fixing power grids would require the kind of large-scale infrastructure investment hampered by the scarcity of development funds and the high cost of private capital (which itself is due to local macroeconomic, political, and currency risks).
Yet the weakness of national grids is not as insurmountable an obstacle to EV development as it first appears. Thanks to off-grid solar, EV charging stations can operate even in areas that lack a reliable power grid, in cities or deep in the countryside. With off-grid solar chargers, Africa could leapfrog the power grid much like it leapfrogged landline infrastructure in the late 2000s with the advent of mobile phones—with the additional benefit of ensuring that EVs on Africa’s roads run on clean, sun-powered electricity. And battery swapping stations further reduce the need for a far-reaching, reliable power grid, since charging is then handled by station operators and not motorists.
Installing enough off-grid solar stations to cover areas without reliable power will take time, but each station is an investment of limited scope that won’t face the same financing hurdles as a dam or a power plant. Dodai, an EV manufacturer in Ethiopia, is already building two or three battery swapping stations each month, while Spiro is building its network of stations across Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. More stations, including solar-powered ones, will follow, especially if policymakers step up to support a fully functioning EV ecosystem.
How policymakers can help support the rise of EVs
Policymakers across Africa have a critical role to play in accelerating EV adoption. First, they could limit or eliminate import duties on EVs and EV parts (as Ethiopia and Kenya have done), as well as limit or eliminate import duties on solar panels and parts (as Zimbabwe has done). Furthermore, they could harmonize EV incentives and technology standards across countries so private actors can operate seamlessly across regional markets. Today, local EV manufacturers are struggling to adapt to differing tariff regimes and technology standards from country to country.
To make EVs easier for consumers to afford and pay for, policymakers should work with development banks to structure financial products that pool together thousands of individual EV loans. As with mortgages, those products could generate returns for lenders. And since potential EV buyers are also held back by a lack of charging infrastructure, policymakers should de-risk private investments in such infrastructure by offering guarantees against potential losses. In addition, they should reform financial regulations to encourage the expansion of mobile payment systems, which facilitate transactions at charging stations.
Finally, policymakers should set a timeline for phasing out fuel subsidies, one tied to EV accessibility and gasoline prices. Doing so would further incentivize the switch to EVs, without putting too much strain on consumers who don’t have access to the infrastructure they need to drive one.
Amid shifting world energy prices, African policymakers can make bold moves that further motivate private actors to turn toward off-grid solar and battery swapping stations, paving the way for electric mobility on the continent. If more countries adopt policy incentives to accelerate this trend, they could amplify its benefits for African jobs, public finances, and public health—and allow the continent to leapfrog traditional power grids.
François Christophe is an independent political risk analyst with a special interest in East Africa. He was previously posted at the Embassy of France in Asmara, Eritrea.
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Image: People wait at an electric vehicle power charging station in Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria, on February 4, 2026. Photo via REUTERS/Sodiq Adelakun.