Dirty Gears: in Diamond-rich Botswana, Asia’s old EVs Crank Pollution.

“We can’t service the electricals. Maybe break apart the car, sell what you can,” Edward Ragadi, a technician in a workshop in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, tells a distressed driver of a hybrid Nissan Note hatchback.

He has seen it all in the last five years, as the global push for EV cars has meant something else in diamond-rich Botswana – old, dying EVs. “We need clean energy cars, of course, but this is dumping of rusty stuff, what the Asians and Europeans are doing,” he says.

He is talking of used EVs from Asia, mainly Japan, that are worming into the auto market in Botswana and Southern Africa– and gunning for market against the legacy gasoline cars. Of the 13, 244 new cars imported to Botswana in 2024, a staggering 83,2% originated from Japan, Raymond Lekobane, the statistician general, told the Energy Pioneer. According to Be Forward, a major Japanese exporter, Africa is the world’s largest buyer of previously used Japanese cars. It is unclear how many of these are pure EVs or hybrids.

Based on his general assessments as a mechanic, Ragadi says roughly 5,000 full EVs or hybrid mixes are being driven in the capital city. Instead of greening the roads, these used EVs, often old and unwanted in their home countries, are causing pollution problems across Botswana and Africa.

EVs don’t emit exhaust fumes like older diesel and petrol sedans coming to Botswana from Japan or Europe. However, older EVs typically have lithium-ion batteries, DC-AC converters, inverters, and chargers whose end-of-life poses challenges. He explains, “...when these sophisticated parts and wirings are rusty and fixed on old cars, they disintegrate and are thrown into landfills,” he says.

Sophisticated parts of old EVs are adding to the rubber, metal, (and) toxic chemicals junk that line Botswana’s urban landfills, explains Oarabile Motlaleng, the mayor of Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana. “Old EVs whose electrical parts are coming apart are a new headache we are clueless about,” Motlaleng says.

He further explains that the absence of specialist engineering skills means most EV parts from old and imported cars are headed to the landfill within two years of landing in Botswana.

Ragadi agrees that old EVs are challenging to rehabilitate or keep on the road for longer because, in Botswana, like many African countries, there are very few trained technicians who can handle these vehicles. “In my network, there is no single mechanic trained to service EV cars. When a client comes in with a troublesome old Honda or Toyota EV, we usually advise them to take the vehicle to car breakers, sell the interchangeable parts and throw away the rest of electrical wirings and gadgetry,” he says.

What's playing out in Japan is a part of a pattern of hypocrisy that developed world car makers are staging on Africa’s roads, says Dennis Juru, president of the Southern Africa International Traders Association, a regional grouping of importers and exporters. Nations such as Japan and the EU are structuring concessional finance to kick-start the green transition in countries such as Botswana and South Africa. At the same time, they remain silent as their car exporters ship all types of old, rusty used cars to Africa, be they EVs or gasoline-powered sedans.

“It’s classic hypocrisy, it sort of cheapens the developed world’s green transition messaging in Africa. Clean energy cars shouldn’t mean dumping old, unwanted not so-clean EVs to Africa,” he says.

Countries like South Africa, a neighbor of Botswana, have sought to prevent the import of old cars from Japan, Europe, or the US, whether EVs or gasoline-powered vehicles. South Africa requires that old cars arriving from abroad, when in transit at its seaports, must not be driven on local roads; they must be transported by haulage trucks out of the country to frontier countries. It doesn’t really work, says Juru, because ‘the same old EVs and gasoline cars are smuggled back into South Africa’. 

Tawanda Chitiyo, who heads the startup Tawanda Energy, a company that experiments with ways to manufacture cheap photovoltaic equipment for solar panels in Southern Africa, shared his thoughts on the topic. “When elements from old EVs are dumped in landfills, children scavenge the sites for toys. Toxic rubber, metal, or acidic car parts do affect kids’ skin. It’s such a hazard that needs to be warned against,” he says.

The Embassy of Japan in Botswana didn’t respond to Energy Pioneer’s request for comment on the trade practices of its car exporters. However, two years ago, the state-led Japan Bank for International Cooperation was promoting its efforts to expand green finance to support Africa's green transition, with a focus on decarbonizing transport and factories.