Ethiopia's Unlikely EV Push: A Poor Country Moves Faster Than the Rich

The narrator opens by noting that the future of electric vehicles is often associated with Norway, China or California. The country moving faster than almost anywhere else, however, is not rich, is not known for making cars, and has roughly half its population without reliable electricity.

According to the narration, EVs have quietly arrived in Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, which decided to do what none of the richest countries had done.

In 2024 Ethiopia banned the import of new petrol and diesel vehicles, which the narration describes as a very radical move. The ban applies to new imports only. Every gasoline-powered vehicle already in the country could stay on the road.

The narration contrasts this with pledges by the UK, Canada and members of the EU, which would phase out gas cars over a decade and have in many cases been quietly walked back. Ethiopia acted almost overnight. The narrator asks viewers to set climate aside for a moment and follow the money.

The narration explains that Ethiopia imports more than it exports, and that one of the major imports is fuel, costing up to $5 billion a year. For years the country subsidized fuel with money it did not really have.

In 2023 Ethiopia defaulted on its debt, failing to make an interest payment on its bond, which made it the latest defaulter in Africa. The International Monetary Fund then stepped in with a $3.4 billion bailout.

The narration says that gasoline has been difficult to obtain, with long queues at gas stations that can take hours and sometimes days.

The video follows Natnael, a taxi driver in Addis Ababa, who says switching to an EV saves him around $150 a month from a total income of about $480 a month.

The video says that in 2024 more than 60% of newly registered cars in Addis Ababa were electric. According to government figures, which the narration notes have not been independently assessed, the number of EVs on Ethiopia's roads grew from 7,000 in 2022 to more than 100,000 in 2025.

The US International Trade Organization estimated the number at around 30,000 before the gas car ban took effect. Before the full ban, EV penetration was about 1% or below. Today EVs make up 6% of vehicles on the roads, compared with a global average of 4%. The narrator says Ethiopia has essentially leapfrogged the rest of the world in adopting electric vehicles in just two years.

The narration says Ethiopia cannot afford oil, but its electricity is among the cheapest in the world. The average price is about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with about 18 cents in the US last year and about 40 cents in the UK.

The source of this electricity is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, which the video describes as producing about 5,000 megawatts and as Africa's largest hydroelectric plant. The project took 14 years and about $5 billion, and involved a long dispute with Egypt over water rights. According to the narration, 99% of Ethiopia's electricity comes from clean sources, 96% from hydropower, and the country produces enough to export to neighbouring countries including Tanzania, Kenya and Djibouti.

The narrator makes the point that generating electricity is not the same as moving it, and that Ethiopia's grid is a challenge. The country has about 130 million people, and according to a recent estimate only about 55% have access to electricity.

Blackouts are common, which makes charging EVs difficult. When the ban took effect, Ethiopia had almost no public charging stations.

The narration describes a chicken-and-egg problem in which people do not buy EVs without enough chargers, and chargers are not built without enough EVs. In Ethiopia, however, most people charge at home, and charging infrastructure came after car sales began.

Ethiopia still had almost no public charging stations when the ban on fossil fuel cars took effect, and blackouts are common, which makes charging EVs difficult. The country now has around 200 public charging stations, and the network is expanding into cities such as Adama and Hawassa.

The narration says cheap electricity gets Ethiopia halfway, but it still needs something to plug in, and the country does not really make cars. Almost every car on the lots in Addis Ababa comes from one place, and the dealerships sell EVs imported from China, mainly Chinese brands.

The narrator notes that about five years ago China was not exporting many vehicles, electric or otherwise. Today China is one of the world's largest vehicle exporters and exports more vehicles than Germany and Japan. The narrator suggests that if the Ethiopian story looks like a sideshow to Western automakers, the global figures should worry them.

Ethiopia wanted to build cars with Ethiopian workers rather than only buy them from China, so it offered importers a tariff structure. A fully assembled EV carries a tariff of about 15%. A semi-assembled car shipped as a kit of parts, known as semi-knockdown or SKD, carries a 5% tariff. A car shipped fully in parts, known as completely knocked down or CKD, carries no tariff at all, if it is assembled locally.

The narration sums it up: ship a finished car and pay the tax, ship a box of parts and pay nothing.

The video visits a plant about 30 km outside the capital. The government has licensed about 17 EV assembly companies, but so far only one of them, BKG Manufacturing, has started operating. The narration describes BKG as the Bulane Kindai Group, which began in 1991 as an import-export business and is now one of Ethiopia's largest private conglomerates, with interests from hotels and farms to construction and, since 2018, vehicles.

The vehicles coming off the line at BKG include minibuses and the shared taxis commonly used across Addis Ababa. The narration explains that most people do not own cars and depend on public transport. The big buses are owned by the city administration, while the minibuses are run by individuals providing transport services.

The Chinese automaker Nanjing Golden Dragon Bus Company supplies parts that BKG assembles. The narration says Chinese engineers initially ran the factory floor alongside Ethiopian workers, but that changed quickly. By the second visit, Ethiopian employees had been fully trained and took over every process themselves. Many BKG minibuses go to private drivers and companies, but its single biggest buyer is the city itself.

In its 2025 climate plan Ethiopia set a goal of reaching 500,000 electric vehicles and more than 2,000 charging stations by 2033. The narrator asks whether the country can make EVs affordable to new buyers, since the sticker price is the real sticking point for most Ethiopians.

A small EV such as the BYD Seagull costs about $23,000, while average yearly income per person is less than $1,000. The narration notes that Ethiopia therefore has one of the highest EV shares and one of the lowest car ownership rates in the world: 13 people out of 1,000 own cars, well below the African average of 73 per 1,000.

The narration describes a supply problem: Ethiopia wants to kickstart a car industry, which it calls a tall order. The BKG plant builds about one vehicle a day. BKG is already working on a second plant for passenger cars, which is due to begin assembly in 2027. The narrator says it is still a long way from Ethiopia's target.

The narrator says the biggest obstacle may have nothing to do with factories. In September 2026 fighting broke out in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, almost four years after a peace deal ended a deadly civil war between the government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

Ethiopia accused Eritrea, Egypt and Sudan of supporting the rebels; all three deny it. The narration says Ethiopia has grown increasingly isolated in the region, partly because of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Egypt and Sudan opposed. The prime minister has also made access to the Red Sea a national priority, which has fuelled speculation about Eritrea's port of Assab. Instability at home and in the Middle East, the narration adds, makes moving away from oil more urgent, as oil prices have risen sharply.

Ethiopia is continuing to push ahead with its energy plans. Another hydropower plant is already under construction and is due for completion by the end of the decade. In 2027 Ethiopia will also host the UN climate summit in Addis Ababa, and the government is eager to show the world what an electric vehicle transition can look like from the perspective of a developing country.

The narrator says this national experiment cannot simply be copied. Most countries do not have a river like the Nile, a car market small enough to change this quickly, or a fuel crisis large enough to force the question.

The narrator argues it still settles one argument: the question was never really whether a country could do this fast, but whether one would. Rich countries have spent two decades planning for a future they keep postponing, while Ethiopia could not afford to wait, so it did not.