Can electric vehicles be good for Sub-Saharan Africa?

Transport is an integral component of the energy system, and in Sub-Saharan Africa the demand for transport has been increasing due in part to population growth and economic development. To demonstrate the extent of this increased demand, emissions from transport in Africa grew by 84% over 6 years last decade 1 until, in 2018 in Sub-Saharan Africa, 15% of final energy consumption was demanded by the transport sector 2. However, a global system change is underway for road passenger transport: a transition from polluting internal combustion engine vehicles to low-emission electric vehicles. Sub-Saharan Africa will not be immune to this transition, especially as a region which currently depends heavily on the import of second-hand vehicles 3; not to mention the emission and air quality benefits electric vehicles can offer. Yet, by 2019 only 500 electric vehicles were on the roads in South Africa 4. In this Viewpoint, we aim to dispel concerns that electric vehicles are always unaffordable and will cripple the already overloaded power systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Instead, we propose that with innovative thinking and context-specific approaches and technologies, different from those in High-Income Countries, electric vehicles could in fact offer benefits to governments, the power systems, and vehicle owner-operators in Sub-Saharan Africa. We lay out how the historically siloed transport and electricity sectors could evolve to support each other in the future.