1. 🚁 Heli view: Burkina Faso is making EVs? What the ****

Less than two weeks ago, Burkina Faso unveiled its first locally-made electric vehicle along with public EV charging stations. 

• The car (above) is fully electric, charges in 30 minutes and has a range of 330 km. 

• Made by Burkinabe engineers at local automaker Itaoua, it serves a market where less than 1,000 new vehicles are sold annually. 

For real: Burkina Faso, which has a GDP of $20 billion and 23 million citizens, is the latest in a growing list of African countries that are making EVs. 

• The majority of vehicles on the continent are still being imported. 

• But every week a new vehicle plant seems to be announced.

Going big: African EV maker Spiro announced a plan on Monday to make 100,000 motorbikes annually in Nigeria starting this year.

• Rahul Gaur, Spiro’s director for West Africa, said, “This will also include localising the manufacturing of three-wheelers and batteries.”

• The previous week the company announced interest-free financing for Kenyan customers as well as an expansion to India. 

Market size: More than one hundred separate companies form what is starting to look like a pan-continental vehicle industry. 

• The African EV market is estimated to reach sales above $17 billion this year, with a projected annual growth rate of more than 10% over the next five years.

Growing diversity: Even more surprising than the size of the market is its geographic spread, growing vehicle types and increasing production sophistication.

Second-class: Vehicle production in Africa has long been looked down on as mere assembly of parts. And that’s still a lot of what happens now, though at escalating scale.

• Kenyan EV maker Roam plans to reach an annual production capacity of 50,000 locally designed and assembled electric motorcycles and buses. 

• More than 20 African countries are now assembling locally, fuelled by tax incentives.

Open eyes: Actual manufacturing is however taking hold as well on the continent.

• South African-based MellowVans manufactured the world’s first electric tricycle to be declared road legal in Europe.

• Innoson in Nigeria has unveiled a locally produced electric vehicle line-up.

• In any case, the assembly vs manufacturing distinction is increasingly fluid globally. Nobody makes all their own parts. Everyone assembles to some extent.

Vehicle types: The need to address the sometimes unique needs of African customers has led to a proliferation of local vehicle variants.

• A lack of tarmac and electrification in rural areas as well as the need for greater affordability in Africa is shaping local innovation. 

• Many vehicle companies started with Chinese and Indian products but found them ill-suited and soon switched to modifying them or designing their own.

Supply chains: This is where it gets really interesting. Smaller African nations may or may not be destined to manufacture cars at scale. 

• But the manufacture of ingredient parts suits even some industrial minnows.

• Ugandan state-owned vehicle makers are mandated to grow local supplies.

• Ethiopia is building a domestic battery industry leveraging local deposits of at least 110 million tonnes of lithium ore.

In the meantime: Africa already had one heavyweight car manufacturer. South Africa has long made hundreds of thousands of vehicles for export, mainly to Europe. 

• Morocco has now overtaken South Africa, making more than half a million cars a year – for export to the EU, which sits on its doorstep. Egypt too is ramping up.

Questions remain: Will there be hundreds of vehicle companies in dozens of African countries a decade or two from now? 

• Do many of the new companies have a commercial future? Going up against Chinese manufacturers also rushing to the continent? 

• Or is this more of a speculative bubble, a series of venture-capital bets where even the investors only expect a fraction to win? 

Optimistic realism: Even if the majority of EV companies in Africa were to fail eventually, the planet could still be a winner (and investors too). 

• The current momentum suggests a market opportunity for electric vehicles in Africa.

• That could well create local industry and manufacturing jobs for Africans.  

• And the planet cares little how many different logos are on emission-free vehicles.

2. Number of the week 

 …is the rate of people in Sub-Saharan Africa breathing unhealthy air. This widespread exposure to harmful air contributes to respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular problems and other health issues, impacting most of the population's overall well-being and quality of life. Until recently, limited data on air quality in the region meant that clean air had not been prioritised as a public health – or business – concern.

4. What we’re reading

• Gas-powered cars: Some African governments are championing vehicles powered with natural gas instead of EVs to tackle transport emissions. Overcoming hurdles like power infrastructure and affordability, nations such as Nigeria, Egypt and Tanzania are converting vehicles to run on abundant natural gas reserves. While the exact savings are still unclear, these initiatives may offer a quick and cheap way to cut emissions. Experts see gas reserves potentially fueling vehicles for years. The estimates project a 7% growth in the African market for vehicles powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) between 2025 and 2030. (Climate Change News)

• Mining goes green: Africa's mining sector is increasingly adopting renewables to decarbonise, driven by sustainability and cost efficiencies. Integrating solar, wind and hydro power, mining could reduce fossil fuel reliance and cut carbon footprints by up to 40% in pilot projects. Operations at mining company Tronox may slash its carbon footprint by 25% compared to 2019 by sourcing 70% of its energy from solar. Zambia's First Quantum Mining plans to reduce its carbon footprint by 30% this year. Partnerships are helping drive such large-scale deployments, with some countries planning to share renewable energy sources. (SolarQuarter)