Project Team: Rose Mutiso, Hamna Tariq, Daniel Johansson, June Lukuyu, Audrey Zenner

Project Advisors: Murefu Barasa, Michael Dioha, June Lukuyu, Joel Nana

Overview

The Africa Electric Vehicle Readiness and Impact Index is the first comprehensive, all-Africa assessment of the drivers and benefits of EV adoption in African countries.

By leveraging public data sources and innovative analysis, the Index:

• Addresses critical data gaps in African EV markets, and
• Offers insights that will help policymakers, investors, and other decision-makers drive the adoption of EVs across Africa.

The project has two components:

• Africa EV Readiness Index: Assesses the preparedness of 48 African countries to adopt EVs at scale . The EV Readiness Index covers ten indicators across five categories: enabling policies, market potential, affordability, grid infrastructure, and power sector maturity, all adapted to the African context.

• Africa EV Impact Index: This index assesses the broader potential benefits of EV adoption in all 54 African countries, covering climate, financial, public health, and cross-cutting impacts. The EV Impact Index spotlights  impact levers that could motivate a pro-EV agenda alongside market readiness factors in each country.

This memo provides a brief summary of key takeaways from our analysis. Interactive maps showing continent-wide EV readiness and impact performance can be found here. An article providing additional context into the African EV data gap and how this project tackles these challenges is published in the journal Science here.

Key Takeaways

• Africa lacks rigorous EV data and analysis, limiting policy and investment. Anecdotal narratives dominate the discourse around EVs in Africa, focusing narrowly on promising EV startups in a few hotspot countries. Major global EV outlooks lack Africa-specific data beyond South Africa, and standard metrics misrepresent the African context. African decision-makers lack a firm basis for smart policy and investment to advance EVs. This Index is an important contribution towards closing this gap, and more rigorous EV data and analysis is needed for Africa to develop a mature EV market.

• Anecdotal EV country narratives align somewhat with our quantitative findings but overlook key details. Mainstream African EV coverage in regional market analyses and media articles often focuses on a small set of countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, and Morocco, known for their burgeoning EV startups or automotive industry ties. Most of these ‘EV hotspots’ rank among the 12 African countries with high EV readiness in our index. However, Nigeria lags in EV readiness despite its large economy and entrepreneurial dynamism, while less-covered Seychelles and Mauritius are top performers. Ethiopia and Ghana also rank highly and deserve more attention in the EV discourse.

• Africa’s grids are not ready for large-scale EV adoption. Most countries would need to divert more than a fifth of their ten-year electricity demand growth to support a 30% conversion of road transportation to EVs. Additionally, grid instability is widespread, with only eight countries meeting high reliability standards, posing a challenge for integrating EVs. Investing in grid infrastructure is especially valuable, as it supports broader economic growth beyond just EVs.

• Africa’s low motorization rates highlight a significant market weakness. With an average of only 73 vehicles per 1,000 people (covering all vehicle types) and 76% of countries below 100 vehicles per 1,000 people, Africa lags far behind the global average. These rates correlate strongly with per capita income, indicating significant suppressed demand. Low incomes are a major barrier to EV adoption in Africa.

• The climate impact of projected EV adoption in Africa is modest. While mature markets often promote EVs through an emphasis on decarbonization and carbon emission reduction, African policymakers focus on socio-economic impacts. Our analysis shows a moderate projected climate impact from EV adoption in Africa due to low clean energy generation (only 13 countries have over two-thirds of their energy from clean sources, while more than half have less than one-third) and modest transport emissions. Instead, improving urban air quality and reducing costly fossil fuel imports are the major drivers of EV impact in Africa.

• EV adoption can drive diverse positive impacts across Africa, supporting the case for pro-EV policies. While 24 countries show high EV impact potential, only 12 demonstrate high readiness, highlighting the need for less-ready countries to pursue EV policies. Key focus areas include enabling policies, grid infrastructure development, and power sector improvements. Given the uncertainty in EV deployment models, large-scale charging infrastructure investment may be premature. Instead, supporting public and private sector experiments — like fleet electrification pilots and EV startups — will be more effective initially.

Next Steps 

We plan to widely disseminate this report and hold stakeholder consultations, to publish additional insights in peer-reviewed and policy publications, and to develop an interactive, open-source database that integrates community feedback and is updated regularly.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Jake Kincer, a former project team member, and Ben Hinchliffe, our project intern, for their invaluable contributions to this project.