Ethiopia Banned Gas and Diesel Car Imports and Built Africa's Biggest Dam. Its EV Fleet Has Nearly Quadrupled Since.

Ethiopia is aiming to put half a million electric vehicles on its roads by 2030, with more than 97 percent of the country's electricity already coming from hydropower. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa's largest, began operation in 2025 with a capacity of 5,150 megawatts, doubling the country's electricity output. Over 100 electric buses now carry more than 90,000 passengers daily in the capital, Addis Ababa, running with virtually no climate impact given the clean generation source. In 2024, the government banned the import of gasoline and diesel cars, driven partly by an annual oil import bill of close to four billion euros that the country can no longer comfortably sustain. Two years ago, roughly 30,000 EVs operated on Ethiopian roads. That number has grown to nearly 120,000.

The economic argument for the transition is straightforward even if the logistics are not. Hydropower remains affordable while fuel prices in Ethiopia have more than tripled since 2022, pressure that has only grown as oil prices have risen sharply. One Addis Ababa taxi driver told DW REV that his monthly fuel costs fell from between 40,000 and 50,000 birr down to around 5,000 birr after switching to an electric vehicle and charging at home. The entry price for a small EV in Ethiopia is around 17,000 euros, far beyond what most residents earn. Roughly 63 million people, about 46 percent of the population, still live without electricity. The transition is currently concentrated in the capital and among those who can access it financially. The next target is electrifying Addis Ababa's fleet of shared minibus taxis, which form the backbone of city transport.

The charging network is the main bottleneck. Around 500 stations operate nationally, almost all within Addis Ababa. Private operators are beginning to fill the gap: Ezekiyas Dufera opened a 24-hour fast charging station in early 2026 with an app showing real-time pricing. He reports that occasional electricity outages present challenges, though reliability has improved significantly. Ethiopia operates 17 plants that assemble electric vehicles, some building electric minibuses using parts sourced from China. One plant described in the DW REV report produces only around 500 vehicles per year, constrained by a shortage of foreign currency for importing components. This is the same foreign currency pressure that originally motivated the fuel import ban, creating a circular constraint on the pace of domestic EV production.

Bottom line: Ethiopia's situation demonstrates what becomes possible when a country's electricity is already clean and fuel costs are politically untenable. The math here works even without subsidies or consumer incentives. The charging gap and the electricity access gap are real, but the policy direction is set and the fleet numbers are moving in one direction.