Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Genuinely surprised they haven’t shipped them for sale to Africa. It’s where a lot of old combustion vehicles from Europe end up. Maybe not worth the effort?

View on HN

23 million cars were sold in China last year, and that figure was lower than usual because of COVID.

https://www.factorywarrantylist.com/car-sales-by-country.htm...

Meanwhile, the number in all of Africa combined was 790,100.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/473598/passenger-car-sal...

I'm sure they'll ship some off to Africa if they can't find any other options, but as you say they're competing against used clunkers from Europe, so the margins will be terrible.

Yeah, Africa has two problems: lack of money, and high import tariffs (usually in response to the lack of foreign currency).

and logistics -- outside of big coastal cities its a lot harder to move them inland in bulk.

Africa doesn't have the grid capacity to support a shift to electric vehicles. Right now South Africa (i.e., the richest country in Africa) has daily rolling power cuts (aka "load shedding") because they don't generate enough electricity for current demand, let alone for widespread EVs.

The major advantage of liquid fuel compared to electricity is that it's easier to transport and store, and harder to steal, which is why I don't think EVs will see significant take up in the third world.

I think you may be confused about what you're responding to. As far as I understand, they are talking about ICE vehicles, not EVs:

"China has a much larger problem with unsellable ICE vehicles which don't meet the new emission standards they're about to introduce."

Thanks, my mistake! I did misread it as China having a surplus of EV cars instead of ICE cars. Either way Africa is a tough market. But I think my point about a stable electric grid as a prerequisite for EV take-up still stands.

They can't generate enough electricity because of corruption. When you have people actively sabotaging power generation, there are bigger concerns than the transition to EVs. If you attempt to transition the country to renewables, then you'll be killed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com