Africa’s electric vehicle market has long been described as a future opportunity. In 2025, it started looking like a present one. Approximately 7,900 electric vehicles were sold in Egypt last year, making it the continent’s largest EV market by volume. Morocco and South Africa followed in second and third place respectively, with the three markets together accounting for roughly 70% of all EV sales across Africa in 2025. Put differently, the continent’s EV story is currently being written in three countries, and the gap between them and the rest of the continent remains substantial.
The headline number that deserves more attention than it typically gets is this: continental EV sales grew from around 4,000 units in 2023 to nearly 25,000 units in 2025. That is not incremental growth. That is a market more than sextupling in two years. In a continent of 1.4 billion people where fuel costs are acutely felt, where urban air quality is a growing public health concern, and where energy security is increasingly a strategic priority, that trajectory matters.
Egypt: Market Leader with Manufacturing Ambitions
Egypt’s position at the top of the table is not accidental. The government has built a policy framework designed to pull both demand and supply in the same direction simultaneously. On the demand side, tax incentives reduce EV purchase costs by up to EGP 50,000 (approximately $3,200), and customs duties on EV components have been waived. On the supply side, a partnership between Chinese manufacturer BAIC and Egyptian company Alkan Auto is establishing local production capacity, with an eye on both domestic demand and MENA regional exports. Egypt’s Vision 2030 target of producing 500,000 EVs annually by the end of the decade is ambitious, but it is backed by a regulatory framework that is already taking shape. Under Decree No. 503 of 2026, industrial EV production projects can deduct up to 50% of investment costs from taxable profits over seven years.
Egypt’s broader vehicle market is also expanding rapidly, with overall sales surging 26.9% in January and 35.5% in February 2026. The EV segment is growing within a growing market, a more favourable dynamic than EV growth within a stagnant or declining total market, which is the situation in several Western markets right now.
The challenge is infrastructure. As of early 2025, Egypt had fewer than 500 public charging stations across the entire country. Around 80% of EV charging currently happens at home, a pattern that limits the market to consumers who have off-street parking and reliable home electricity supply. Expanding the public charging network, particularly outside Cairo and Alexandria, is the critical variable that will determine how quickly Egypt’s EV market scales from thousands of units to hundreds of thousands.
The Broader African Picture
Each of the top three markets has a distinct model worth tracking. Morocco is positioning itself as a manufacturing and export hub, with significant investment in local EV assembly and a renewable energy foundation. 40% of its electricity already comes from renewables, which makes its EV proposition genuinely clean rather than just fossil-fuel-adjacent. South Africa brings the continent’s most developed automotive supply chain and announced a 150% tax deduction for EV production starting in 2026, a strong signal to global OEMs considering where to place their next investment. Kenya is charting a different path, leading in electric two- and three-wheelers rather than passenger cars, with battery-swapping infrastructure being pioneered by local startups better suited to the realities of commercial motorcycle fleets.
Africa’s EV charging market, valued at $31.93 million in 2022, is projected to reach $256.53 million by 2030, a 30% compound annual growth rate. That infrastructure investment will be the foundation on which everything else depends.
What Investors and Industry Should Watch
The 25,000-unit African EV market of 2025 is not yet a large commercial prize in absolute terms. Globally, over 20 million EVs were sold in the same year, representing roughly a quarter of all new car sales worldwide. Africa’s share of that is less than 0.2%. But the growth rate, the policy momentum, and the demographic fundamentals of a young, rapidly urbanising population with rising purchasing power concentrated in precisely the cities where EV economics make the most sense, tell a story worth positioning around now rather than later.
Chinese brands currently dominate the African EV market on availability and price. European and other international OEMs that delay market entry risk ceding ground that will be structurally difficult to recover. The countries building local manufacturing capacity today, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, will have the regulatory, logistical, and relationship advantages when the volume arrives.
The long-term global forecast of 510 million EVs on the road by 2035 is built largely on growth in Asia, Europe, and North America. Africa’s contribution to that number is currently minimal. That is the gap where the opportunity lives.
Written by:
*Chloe Maluleke
Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group
Russia & Middle East Specialist
**The Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.
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