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I can imagine that will be somewhat easier in Ethiopia than in many other countries. Ethiopia has one of the lowest per capita number of motor vehicles in the w

I can imagine that will be somewhat easier in Ethiopia than in many other countries. Ethiopia has one of the lowest per capita number of motor vehicles in the world, in fact out of 195 ranked countries Ethiopia is 189th (tied with Burundi, and just ahead of CAR, the DRC, Somalia and Sudan). Even given that however, as the article states there simply isn't a charging infrastructure to support a shift to electric. More, this sounds like it's largely motivated by economic factors: > "Ethiopian here. Main reason for this is the fact that it's currently struggling with a severe foreign exchange shortage, affecting its ability to import oil and other commodities. Aside from this surprising announcement, lack of foreign currency has also led to a significant push towards enhancing its agricultural productivity and boosting its local production of light manufactured goods." It's hard to imagine how that's going to square with a nationwide charging network for the 1.2 million vehicle owners out of 128 million Ethiopians. citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_motor_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territor...

ttfkam 3y ago
Given one of the lowest per capita number of motor vehicles, it likely also lacks petroleum infrastructure as well. You don't make a huge number of gas stations when there aren't many cars. If given the choice of building up a transportation infrastructure based on hydrocarbons only to be torn down as the world moves toward electrification versus fast tracking your electrical grid, the latter seems an obvious choice. With the decline in solar prices, it allows for greater decentralization in that infrastructure. Solar ends up a (relative) one-time purchase. Oil is a constant importation drain on your economy. It's cell phones all over again, skipping over the landline step. Why string phone cables to every home when you can just concentrate on a relative few cell towers?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  All great points between your comment and the one that you replied to. What’s really exciting is that every country has electrical infrastructure practitioners: electricians, linemen, etc, so the roll out of charging infra can be done very rapidly with proper training and resourcing. It also probably helps that China isn’t yet importing EVs to the developed world at scale, so all of those EVs built beyond domestic consumption will be shipped to places like Ethiopia. Mass produced Chinese EVs speeding the death of combustion vehicles in the developing world seems like a net win.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > electricians, linemen, etc, so the roll out of charging infra can be done very rapidly with proper training and resourcing. Not really, the electricians and the linemen are busy with maintenance, to roll out more infra you need a massive influx of capital.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Savings from fossil fuel costs? Investing in electrical infra delivers returns from deprecating ongoing fossil consumption and associated spend.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        That would be a trickle compared to what is required. HV power infra is incredibly expensive and countries like Ethiopia have too little of it as it is. Check out the footage linked below and where and when there is electrical infra. I wouldn't be surprised if there are large areas in Ethiopia where there is no grid at all. First things that get bought when electricity becomes available: refrigerators, televisions. Mobile phones + solar panel chargers are commonplace even where there is no grid. That's a whole industry in Africa. For instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDfvjtb17uE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDfvjtb17uE EV charging: forget about it. Only in the biggest cities.
        simfree 3y ago
        Remember, these grids are already running 220v and the average labor cost is very low. There are many use cases that make sense within said economy with cheap range limited electric vehicles that do not support fast charging. The calculus changes quite substantially when you are paying people tens of dollars an hour, but it is common in Ethiopia for people to spend nearly half of their income on the cost of commuting to work as wages are so low.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      > Sime further explained that efforts to establish charging stations for electric cars remain a high priority Oh, wait. It's a "high priority." That should take care of it /s
grecy 3y ago
> I can imagine that will be somewhat easier in Ethiopia than in many other countries. Ethiopia has one of the lowest per capita number of motor vehicles in the world, in fact out of 195 ranked countries Ethiopia is 189th (tied with Burundi, and just ahead of CAR, the DRC, Somalia and Sudan). These are the kind of conclusions you can get yourself into just from reading numbers on screens when you've never actually set foot in a place and experienced reality. I drove across Ethiopia in early 2019, from a remote border on Lake Turkana into Addis, down into Djibouti, back into Ethiopia and then north into Sudan. I assure you, there is a HUGE number of ICE vehicles and infrastructure for them. Traffic and parking in Addis Abba is a real thing. Here's some footage of me driving in the city so you can see what it is really like https://youtu.be/hPVuc1of4XI?t=418 https://youtu.be/hPVuc1of4XI?t=418
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Incredible footage. Your trip is the kind of thing that a few hundred years ago would result in some kind of epic story told from one generation to another.
  - grecy 3y ago
    Haha, thanks. Some days I kick myself for not doing a better job filming the trip so I could put together a proper documentary, and some days I think I should just do it anyway with the footage I have. I'm also really happy I often just put the cameras away and experienced the place I was in and talked with people. That was the point, after all.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That last part is the reason I hardly have any pictures of my own trips. I'm just too busy to be making pictures all the time and I don't want to be the 'cameraman'. It also tends to immediately mark you as a tourist (though in Ethiopia you would be marked as a tourist anyway but I have never been there). Some of the most amazing sights I've seen were in Colombia and even if I regret not having pictures I have them in my head and that's good enough. But your trip and your footage are on a different level and I think just as an unadorned record it has immense value.
graemep 3y ago
This sounds like Sri Lanka's ban on fertilizer, pesticide etc. imports the then govt sold as a switch to organic, but was just a short term saving of foreign exchange that was disastrous within an year.

ttfkam 3y ago

Given one of the lowest per capita number of motor vehicles, it likely also lacks petroleum infrastructure as well. You don't make a huge number of gas stations when there aren't many cars. If given the choice of building up a transportation infrastructure based on hydrocarbons only to be torn down as the world moves toward electrification versus fast tracking your electrical grid, the latter seems an obvious choice. With the decline in solar prices, it allows for greater decentralization in that infrastructure. Solar ends up a (relative) one-time purchase. Oil is a constant importation drain on your economy. It's cell phones all over again, skipping over the landline step. Why string phone cables to every home when you can just concentrate on a relative few cell towers?

toomuchtodo 3y ago
All great points between your comment and the one that you replied to. What’s really exciting is that every country has electrical infrastructure practitioners: electricians, linemen, etc, so the roll out of charging infra can be done very rapidly with proper training and resourcing. It also probably helps that China isn’t yet importing EVs to the developed world at scale, so all of those EVs built beyond domestic consumption will be shipped to places like Ethiopia. Mass produced Chinese EVs speeding the death of combustion vehicles in the developing world seems like a net win.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > electricians, linemen, etc, so the roll out of charging infra can be done very rapidly with proper training and resourcing. Not really, the electricians and the linemen are busy with maintenance, to roll out more infra you need a massive influx of capital.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Savings from fossil fuel costs? Investing in electrical infra delivers returns from deprecating ongoing fossil consumption and associated spend.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That would be a trickle compared to what is required. HV power infra is incredibly expensive and countries like Ethiopia have too little of it as it is. Check out the footage linked below and where and when there is electrical infra. I wouldn't be surprised if there are large areas in Ethiopia where there is no grid at all. First things that get bought when electricity becomes available: refrigerators, televisions. Mobile phones + solar panel chargers are commonplace even where there is no grid. That's a whole industry in Africa. For instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDfvjtb17uE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDfvjtb17uE EV charging: forget about it. Only in the biggest cities.
      - simfree 3y ago
        Remember, these grids are already running 220v and the average labor cost is very low. There are many use cases that make sense within said economy with cheap range limited electric vehicles that do not support fast charging. The calculus changes quite substantially when you are paying people tens of dollars an hour, but it is common in Ethiopia for people to spend nearly half of their income on the cost of commuting to work as wages are so low.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    > Sime further explained that efforts to establish charging stations for electric cars remain a high priority Oh, wait. It's a "high priority." That should take care of it /s

grecy 3y ago

> I can imagine that will be somewhat easier in Ethiopia than in many other countries. Ethiopia has one of the lowest per capita number of motor vehicles in the world, in fact out of 195 ranked countries Ethiopia is 189th (tied with Burundi, and just ahead of CAR, the DRC, Somalia and Sudan). These are the kind of conclusions you can get yourself into just from reading numbers on screens when you've never actually set foot in a place and experienced reality. I drove across Ethiopia in early 2019, from a remote border on Lake Turkana into Addis, down into Djibouti, back into Ethiopia and then north into Sudan. I assure you, there is a HUGE number of ICE vehicles and infrastructure for them. Traffic and parking in Addis Abba is a real thing. Here's some footage of me driving in the city so you can see what it is really like https://youtu.be/hPVuc1of4XI?t=418 https://youtu.be/hPVuc1of4XI?t=418

jacquesm 3y ago
Incredible footage. Your trip is the kind of thing that a few hundred years ago would result in some kind of epic story told from one generation to another.
- grecy 3y ago
  Haha, thanks. Some days I kick myself for not doing a better job filming the trip so I could put together a proper documentary, and some days I think I should just do it anyway with the footage I have. I'm also really happy I often just put the cameras away and experienced the place I was in and talked with people. That was the point, after all.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That last part is the reason I hardly have any pictures of my own trips. I'm just too busy to be making pictures all the time and I don't want to be the 'cameraman'. It also tends to immediately mark you as a tourist (though in Ethiopia you would be marked as a tourist anyway but I have never been there). Some of the most amazing sights I've seen were in Colombia and even if I regret not having pictures I have them in my head and that's good enough. But your trip and your footage are on a different level and I think just as an unadorned record it has immense value.

graemep 3y ago

This sounds like Sri Lanka's ban on fertilizer, pesticide etc. imports the then govt sold as a switch to organic, but was just a short term saving of foreign exchange that was disastrous within an year.