Nigeria’s Year in the Driver’s Seat for Electric Vehicles

Nigeria is positioning itself as an African EV hub by leveraging high vehicle demand and private sector innovation in battery swapping and asset financing. The proposed Electric Vehicle Transition and Green Mobility Bill seeks to drive this shift by mandating 30% local content for EVs by 2030 and providing tax incentives for manufacturers and users. While companies like Spiro and MAX are scaling infrastructure and fleets, the report suggests Nigeria could adopt a more gradual transition from imports to local manufacturing, similar to Rwanda and Ethiopia, to avoid stalling adoption.

• Nigeria's transportation sector emits approximately 60 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually, with projections suggesting emissions could increase by 50% by 2035 and more than double by 2050 due to economic and population growth.
• The Electric Vehicle Transition and Green Mobility Bill, which passed its second reading in the Senate in late 2025, aims to scale the EV sector through tax holidays, import duty waivers, and a mandate that all EVs sold in Nigeria contain 30% locally sourced components by 2030.
• Electric motorcycles currently offer a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than internal combustion engine (ICE) two-wheelers in Nigeria, and this gap is expected to widen, with EV TCO projected to be half that of ICE vehicles by 2040.
• Private sector actors are deploying scalable EV models: Spiro opened a 100,000-unit capacity plant in Ogun State and plans to expand its battery-swapping network to 2,000 stations in 2026; MAX secured $24 million in equity to expand its EV fleet and infrastructure; and a $100 million financing facility was created by Lagos State, United Bank for Africa, and LagRide.
• The Nigerian Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment (FMITI) signed a memorandum of understanding in early 2026 with South Korea’s Asian Economic Development Committee to establish an EV assembly plant in Kano with an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles.

APA

RMI (2026). Nigeria’s Year in the Driver’s Seat for Electric Vehicles. https://rmi.org/resources/nigerias-year-in-the-drivers-seat-for-electric-vehicles/

Chicago

RMI. Nigeria’s Year in the Driver’s Seat for Electric Vehicles. 2026. https://rmi.org/resources/nigerias-year-in-the-drivers-seat-for-electric-vehicles/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Nigeria’s Year in the Driver’s Seat for Electric Vehicles |date=7 April 2026 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/nigerias-year-in-the-drivers-seat-for-electric-vehicles/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2026nigerias, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Nigeria’s Year in the Driver’s Seat for Electric Vehicles}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2026}, month = apr, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/nigerias-year-in-the-drivers-seat-for-electric-vehicles/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }