By Vijay Jayaraj
Electric vehicles (EVs) are a poster child for the so-called green transition. Even in some of the world’s poorest economies, an unquestioning embrace of all things “green” on the part of political elites powers a push for the adoption of electric vehicles.
Africa — considered to be the least developed continent — is inundated with a plethora of programs and voices fervently promoting EVs as its nations struggle with a gazillion existential issues stemming from the cruel fact that nearly half the population lives in poverty.
EV advocates lobby for subsidies to manufacturers, retailers, and purchasers of electric vehicles with no apparent consideration of the continent’s extremely poor access to electricity. Neither is there acknowledgement that a majority of Africans cannot afford conventional cars let alone pricey battery-powered ones.
No Country for Fancy Toys
A report from World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP) states that “the power system infrastructure [in developing countries] especially continues to provide defective services and is vulnerable to external shock.”
“Grids, on both transmission and distribution levels, are, in many cases, unreliable because of inadequate capacity, lack of maintenance and reinforcement, and a host of other operational issues,” the report said.
The upshot is grids in a majority of African nations are not able to support EV adoption. It is estimated that sub-Sahara Africa experiences nine power outages every month, each lasting for more than five hours. This is hardly service sufficiently adequate to make EVs reliable for daily transportation.
Reuters notes that even Africa’s most developed economy, South Africa, is “facing its worst power crisis on record, with a persistent electricity shortfall necessitating daily scheduled rolling blackouts — known locally as loadshedding — of up to 10 hours, for the past 18 months.” It’s ironic that the home country of the world’s largest EV car company owner (Elon Musk) has a decrepit power supply system.
Those experiencing blackouts at least have some access to electrical service. There are many others who have none.
According to the International Energy Agency, “The number of people without electricity (in sub-Saharan Africa) is almost back to historic highs, increasing from 580 million in 2019 to reach 600 million in 2022.” In the Central African Republic, only 6% of the entire population had access to electricity.
As of 2022, less than half of the population in the region had access to electricity. IEA’s data suggests that 660 million globally are projected to remain without electricity in 2030, “of which 85% or about 560 million people will be in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
In other words, we are dealing with a population that is yet to have electricity for basic lighting and appliances. Moreover, the situation will not improve substantially any time soon.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty is another major barrier to the region’s widespread adoption of electric vehicles. The cost of even electric bikes is generally higher than that of their gasoline-powered counterparts. For many prospective buyers, this is a major deterrent.
Even if we are to assume that buyers will save money on fuel, most Sub-Saharan Africans simply cannot afford the upfront costs of electric vehicles. For most people in this region, internal combustion engines are a more practical option due to their relative affordability, superior availability of spare parts and ease of refuelling.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the push for electric vehicles is a diversion from the region’s more urgent problems. First among these is the people’s well documented poverty followed by related challenges such as inadequate electrification, unreliable power service, and the urgent need to address basic sanitation, nutrition, freshwater access, conventional mobility and economic development.
With General Motors and Ford Motor Co. cutting back EV production because of slow sales in the U.S. — the richest country on Earth — the promotion of EVs to Africans looks all the more ridiculous.
This commentary was first published at Real Clear Energy on November 5, 2023.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK.
South Africa’s electricity woes are self-inflicted … firstly, the political elites took the money from their UN
renewables cadres and bank it os, and then they stole the maintenance money from the ff generators and left them fall into disrepair and finally, the desperate populace stole the copper network to live on the scrap value.
In time – say in 5 years – I think that it will be shown that there is only a relatively small place for EVs in the US and other more developed countries; and that there is only a very tiny place for them in developing countries like Sub-Saharan Africa.
Fossil fuels are such a basic, time tested and lovely energy source.
You are correct, but we don’t need to wait five years.
Not only is it shown already, but it was known beforehand.
Unfortunately, ‘green’ politics did, and still does, dictate that reality is ignored. Apparently, allegedly, there is a planet to saved somewhere, somehow, by banning fossil fuels.
Fortunately, in the long run, most of the world is going to do what the world is going to do, despite Western-green seppuku.
The people that produce fossil fuels are going to continue selling to the people who want and need to buy them.
Adam Smith’s invisible hand will win. Single handedly.
r
Imagine, you can safely (more or less) carry the energy to propel a small car 50 kms or so, in a small plastic jug. Or store it for later use months or years later.
Try that with an EV.
But there are too many battery cars for them to even be valuable as the museum exhibits that they will become.
Story tip:
The UK’s largest household energy suppliers are to pay a combined penalty of almost £11m for not meeting the industry regulator’s 2022 targets for smart meter installations.
The watchdog said that, between them, the shortfall in installations stood at more than one million and that the companies’ individual decisions to pay a penalty averted the need for an investigation.
https://news.sky.com/story/major-energy-suppliers-to-pay-163108m-for-not-meeting-smart-meter-targets-13003806
I won’t be getting one….
That might explain the flurry of phone calls I had from EDF last month – 6 or 7 over a two week period. I recognised the number from a previous call I took from them; when I told the youth on the end of the line that I had no interest in having a smart meter, his response was ‘it’s the same electricity coming out of the socket’. At which point I ended the call.
Desperate stuff!
The UK’s
largest householdenergysupplierscustomers are to pay a combined penalty of almost £11m for The UK’s largest household energy suppliers not meeting the industry regulator’s 2022 targets for smart meter installations.That’s a given, HotScot.
There’s always the customer’s wallet…
Your donation will help fund those who can’t afford net zero electricity.
I won’t be asking for one either. Daily readings of my meter tell me all I want to know. Dale Vince and his kind can get lost; I won’t invite him or his kind to “manage” my demand.
I am sure the will come day—maybe soon—when we in the UK will be compelled to have a smart meter installed, but I won’t cooperate until they show up with a warrant and a bailiff.
Here it is, The World Has Now Gone Completely Mad…
Cause & Effect were never their strongest points but this one takes the biscuit.
(sorry, from Gruaniad)
“”Oil and gas are “not the problem” for the climate, but the carbon emissions arising from them are, the UK’s net zero minister has told MPs.
here
I think it’s actually a cry for help….., or have we another BoJo here?
I’ve given up
Play on, strativarius! “The man that hath no music in himself, nor is mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils…”
In the immortal words of Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart; “Never give up! Never surrender!”
I haven’t given up playing (that’s my contribution to the output of plant food) but the politics here and now is frankly unbelievable.
Why do they always bring me so down???
https://open.spotify.com/track/56mfTLzRXHRqNsy1vAZT1T
More and more the Climatocracy is becoming a parody of itself! They are like a Monty Python’s skit in pith helmets, with an uppercrust British accent, telling the little POC to do as they are told!
The racism and enviro-wacko imperialism of the Green Blob is astonishing; at least until one realizes that envy, fear, hatred and greed are the core principles of their nihilistic, anti-human Marxist religion!
More recently than Python…
This video contains content from ChannelsTVNigeria, who has blocked it from display on this website or application
Have you another link???
Oh dear.
Those are a very short bus !!.
Those small solar buses might work out; which is exciting. This niche of non-fossil fuel energy application is beautiful – again if it works out in the long run. That young entrepreneur is “selling it”… even though climate change is -not- an environmental problem.
As I have read recently from a blog in WUWT; we simply need MORE energy sources including more fossil fuels and nuclear, Along with whatever else makes true economic sense.
THose solar panels are just for show as I estimate maybe 15 amps at 12 volts.
It is incredible that major manufacturers such as Volvo are intent on moving to 100% EVs ASAP when it will simply wipe out their African business.
When I was a child, I went with my family on a wildlife safari in Kenya. The capital Nairobi had electricity, but once you left the bounds of the city there was no grid at all. So dark that I saw some of the most beautiful night skies I’ve ever seen. The hotels we stayed in out in the bush were obviously run on generators, as those also had electricity. Imagine driving 100 miles out into nowhere and there’s a Hilton hotel, all by itself, unconnected to anything, in the middle of the savannah.
Speaking of driving, I cannot imagine any guide taking tourists on a game drive in an electric van….
We did have one breakdown (nothing to do with not having fuel, which was carried in the van, along with a spare tire) which was a flat tire. At night, in a forested area. It was so dark you could literally not see your hand in front of your face. Oddly, the driver did not carry a flashlight. But luckily one of the tourists did. Standing out there in the dark was exactly like you might imagine – all sorts of unnerving animal sounds echoing in the night. But, once the tire was changed, we were on our way to the next hotel.
I can’t even imagine having an EV run out of juice in a situation like that!
“a majority of African nations are not able to support EV adoption”
Nor is California, except for big cities.
It seems to me that the tendency of corruption, theft and inefficiency is not entirely restricted to S.Africa. Didn’t one or more of the other African countries in the region take huge UN loans to build solar and wind electricity generating stations and use them for coal plants? And in S. Africa weren’t there a number of power failures and brown outs because money for maintaining the generating plants and distribution networks wound up in the energy officials’ pockets? So if they can’t provide basic electricity for homes, schools, hospitals, etc., what’s the point of building EV charging stations?