Electric vehicles are the future. What happens to our gas-guzzling cars?

Despite a recent slowdown in US sales, global forecasts for electric vehicles remain bullish. Countries across North America, Europe, and Asia are expanding charger networks and offering EV subsidies; global EV sales are projected to nearly triple by 2030, reaching 40 million vehicles annually. The incipient wave of EV purchases raises a question: What will happen to the millions of gas-powered cars whose owners no longer want them? The likely answer: Rather than scrapping used gas vehicles or selling them domestically, rich nations will dispatch them to developing countries where limited incomes and low levels of car ownership have created eager buyers for even older, substandard models. An influx of used gas cars would be a welcome development for those in the Global South who aspire to automobile ownership, a luxury that many in affluent countries take for granted. But it would undermine efforts to mitigate climate change, since shifting gas guzzlers from one country to another doesn’t lower global emissions. For developing countries themselves, a sharp increase in car ownership could amplify calls to build auto-reliant infrastructure, making it harder to construct the dense neighborhoods and transit networks that can foster more sustainable growth. And since these imported used cars would be fueled by gasoline, air quality would further decline in cities that are already choked with smog. The world is in an era of polycrisis, facing concurrent challenges including climate change, toxic air, and extreme inequality. Difficult trade-offs are often inevitable. Such is the case with the thorny issue of what to do with the millions of gas cars that the rich world will discard as its fleets are electrified. Electrification is a necessary goal. And it’s natural for people in the developing world to desire the same luxuries that characterize middle-class comfort in wealthier countries. The question is how to manage a transition with enormous stakes that has largely been ignored. The experts who do pay attention are growing alarmed. “I’m really worried that everything is going to be gas vehicles for many years, maybe decades,” said Godwin Ayetor, a senior lecturer in engineering at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. “I’m worried about the health implications, and also the congestion. It’s already difficult to walk through Accra because of all the traffic, and the cars keep coming.” Today’s steady flow of used cars into the Global South could become a torrent as the rich world electrifies. A deluge of gas vehicles would be a double-edged sword for low-income nations — and a risk to the planet. How used cars move from rich nations to poor ones Although it generates few headlines, a massive industry transports used cars across borders every day, with exporters collecting lower-quality models from dealers and wholesale auctions. Ayetor noted that colonial legacies are reflected in the trade flows: the UK, with its car cabins designed for drivers who keep to the left, tends to ship to former colonies like Kenya and Tanzania that still follow the same rules. According to a report issued in June by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), some 3.1 million used cars were exported in 2022, up from 2.4 million in 2015. Most come from Japan, Europe, and the United States. (In the US, around 7 percent of all cars no longer in use are sent abroad. The rest end up in junkyards where their parts and materiel are sold off.) About one in three exported used vehicles is destined for Africa, followed by Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Imported models often dominate local auto sales, since international carmakers send few new vehicles to the Global South and rarely establish production facilities there. (In sub-Saharan Africa, only South Africa has local factories.) The developing world’s demand for cars is robust, in large part because comparatively few people own one. According to one 2020 estimate, the US had 860 cars for every 1,000 residents, while South Africa had 176, Morocco 112, and Nigeria just 56. Meanwhile, growing populations provide a steady supply of new potential customers. Africa is home to all of the world’s 20 fastest-growing countries, with Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, and Uganda expanding their populations by at least 3 percent per year. (For comparison, the US population is growing at a 0.67 percent rate). As long as their price is right, aged or damaged used cars will be snapped up in the Global South. Many vehicles shipped from abroad have been in crashes, stripped of parts, or manufactured decades ago, when emissions and safety rules were more lax. A 2020 study by the government of the Netherlands found that most Dutch used cars sent to Africa lacked a roadworthiness certificate; many were manufactured over 20 years ago. “Old cars mean old technologies,” said Ayetor, “and old technologies means they don’t have modern systems to reduce the impact of the emissions before they leach out into the atmosphere.” Wealthy countries have generally turned a blind eye to the shoddy quality of used cars sent overseas; they are profitable transactions for domestic businesses and the risks are largely borne elsewhere. “Most countries do not impose significant restrictions on trading unroadworthy or highly polluting vehicles,” concluded a recent study by the International Transport Forum, the transportation arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The receiving countries can also take a laissez faire approach. About half the 146 nations examined by UNEP do not regulate used car age or quality. Others have adopted policies such as barring used car imports outright (as in South Africa), banning older cars (as in Kenya, where imported vehicles must be less than eight years old), and scaling import tax rates with the age of the vehicle (as in Ghana). Adjacent nations may have different import rules, however, which creates loopholes. “What happens is that vehicles are exported to one country, and then they go to neighboring countries as well,” said Joseph Mashele, who was an automotive regulator in South Africa before recently joining Jaguar Land Rover. Case in point: Despite South Africa’s official ban on used cars, tens of thousands still arrive annually. “Really shady cars make it into emerging economies, because there is still a market for them,” said Andreas Kopf, an author of the ITF’s recent report. His team found that roughly a quarter of used cars sent to the developing world adhere to emissions standards that are at least 21 years old. Many of these cars lack modern safety features and pollution controls that are commonplace in newer vehicles made in wealthier countries. That is a particular concern in Africa, which despite its low level of car ownership still has the world’s highest rates of road deaths and some of its dirtiest air, according to the World Health Organization. In recent years, the developing world’s voracious appetite for used cars has caught the attention of senior leaders in China, an emerging colossus of automotive manufacturing. Until 2019, China banned the export of used vehicles, focusing instead on supplying its burgeoning domestic market. Now those restrictions have been removed, and the Chinese government is actively promoting the used car trade because it can attract foreign currency and stoke domestic demand for automaking heavyweights like BYD and Geely. By sending older gas-powered cars out of the country, China can also nudge residents to buy new EVs, which the government favors with subsidies and a recent cash-for-clunkers program that provides money to those trading in an older-model car. “You can just pull existing internal combustion engine cars out of your fleet, and then you stimulate new sales,” Kopf said. “This is what they are doing in China.” Although China exported only 40,000 used cars in 2022, that figure is expected to skyrocket. According to the ITF’s analysis, Chinese used car exports may total 8 million vehicles annually within the next decade, more than double current trade flows from Europe, East Asia, and North America combined. Still, China’s future trade in used cars could be dwarfed by a tsunami of gas vehicles set to depart the wealthy world. Its cause: Electrification. Electrification will push even more vehicles to the developing world With privately owned automobiles responsible for about 10 percent of global CO2 emissions (and more than twice that share in the US), wealthy nations are rightly moving to electrify their vehicles as quickly as possible. The European Union, for instance, has committed to ending the sales of gas-powered cars by 2035, around the same time as Japan. In the US, the Biden administration has vowed that a majority of new cars will be all-electric or hybrid by 2032. In May, electric and hybrid vehicles represented a little less than half of new car sales in the European Union and under 7 percent in the US. But as electrification ramps up, the Global North’s demand for gas cars — including used ones — will wane. “The total number of cars in rich countries is relatively constant,” said Kopf. “That means that if an EV is entering the fleet, a combustion engine is leaving.” With fewer people shopping for a used gas car within rich countries, more will likely be sent abroad — potentially a whole lot more. Norway, the world’s most aggressive adopter of EVs, provides a preview of what’s to come. With the government providing an array of generous incentives, Norwegians have gone all-in on electric models, which comprise over 90 percent of new car purchases. Around one in four cars on the road in Norway is now electric, compared to under 2 percent in the US. Norway’s EV embrace has triggered a veritable explosion in exports of used gas vehicles: They more than quadrupled in the decade from 2012 to 2022. As other rich nations electrify their own fleets, ITF’s Kopf said he anticipates “similar behavior” to what Norway has experienced. If used car exports in Europe, East Asia, and North America match Norway’s trajectory, those regions would collectively ship 12 million gas vehicles per year, on top of the potentially 8 million coming from China. A total of 20 million used gas cars exported annually to developing nations would be seven times greater than current levels. That would be welcome news for those in lower-income nations who yearn to own their own car, since the laws of supply and demand predict that a growing supply of used vehicles would lower their market price. Ayetor said that “a lot of Africans are hoping” that such a scenario unfolds. But Jane Akumu, a Nairobi-based transport expert at UNEP, said that used car buyers in the Global South should be careful what they wish for, because aged models may not be the bargain that they appear. “If you are importing 20-year-old cars, you have to bring in an equal shipment of parts, because they will break down so quickly,” she told me, noting that immobile cars can clog motorways, thickening traffic as well as smog. Theoretically, an influx of used cars could reduce emissions and breakdowns if newer, cleaner vehicles were displacing the older and dirtier models currently in use. But no one I spoke with expects that to happen. Instead, imported gas guzzlers would be added to the existing fleet — increasing total pollution. “A new used car is not going to replace an older one; it’s just going to be absorbed,” Kopf said. “So you’ll have the 30-year-old car running around, plus the new 10-year-old car.” A 2010 study of used cars shipped from the US to Mexico supports his point: The authors found that although imported cars were cleaner than the average Mexican car, their arrival still increased total emissions because they added to, rather than supplanted, the preexisting vehicle fleet. The world needs a plan to adapt The risks of aged, polluting cars sent abroad will not be borne by the Global South alone. Climate change is a planetary phenomenon; driving a gas guzzler produces the same amount of emissions in Lusaka as it would in London or Los Angeles. Reducing greenhouse gasses requires reducing total vehicle emissions, not just shifting their location. In an ideal world, electrification would enable the rich world to scrap its most decrepit gas cars. Instead, wealthy nations are likely to ship them to poorer countries, which will be left to figure out what to do when even the most MacGyver-like mechanics cannot keep them running. “All of your worst vehicles end up here,” Ayetor said. “When we want to get rid of the vehicle, what do we do?” No wealthy nations currently screen exported vehicles to weed out those that flunk basic quality tests, Kopf said. But that may soon change. The European Union is now considering new regulations that would prohibit exporting “end of life” vehicles, requiring that cars shipped abroad obtain a certificate confirming their roadworthiness. Its adoption would be a “game-changer,” according to UNEP’s Akumu. (She and Kopf said they know of no comparable proposals under consideration in North America.) But Mashele noted that export controls provide only a partial solution. “Sometimes things happen in transit,” he said, “and certain equipment has been tampered with or removed,” making the vehicle more polluting or dangerous upon arrival than when leaving its port of origin. He wants to see stricter emissions and safety checks in the Global South, too. Those countries have a lot of policy work to do. In 2023 the UNEP gave 57 developing nations a rating of “weak” or “very weak” for their vehicle import rules, with the bulk of them in Africa. But the UNEP did note some progress, such as the five East African countries that in 2022 required imported vehicles to adhere to the EU’s Euro 4 emissions standards, which were introduced in 2006. That move followed a similar one in 2021 by a bloc of 15 West African countries, which stipulated that imported used cars follow Euro 4 and be less than 10 years old. Syncing such rules can prevent importers from circumventing countries with strong regulations by shipping to their less stringent neighbors instead. But even if strict vehicle standards are applied universally, the number of used gas cars flowing into the developing world is still poised to rise as the rich world electrifies. As the ranks of car owners in the Global South expand, many are likely to demand new roads to drive on and more places to park. Bowing to such requests will be risky. A century ago, American leaders built highways and reconfigured cities to accommodate the automobile, in the process locking the country into car-oriented development that has lengthened commutes, increased emissions, and undermined city life. The automobile’s dominance has also raised the cost of living: The average American spends 16 percent of their income on transportation in 2020, 5 percentage points higher than those in the denser and more transit-rich nations of the European Union. UNEP’s Akumu is already concerned by what she is seeing in Kenya. A few years ago, she said, nearly half of Nairobi’s children walked to school. But “that number keeps going down, because when you graduate in income, you want to own a car.” As incomes in the Global South grow, density and robust transit service could make driving an option rather than a necessity. For example, South Korea and Taiwan became wealthy nations in the latter half of the 20th century, and both built excellent mass transportation systems. In 2020, their rates of car ownership (458 per 1,000 people in South Korea and 344 per 1,000 in Taiwan) were far below the US (860 per 1,000). Investing in multimodal infrastructure now could help lower-income countries avoid the planning mistakes that the US made a century ago. Many residents of the Global South are understandably eager to purchase their first motor vehicle, but “we need to make sure that an influx of cars does not displace a potential buildup of public transportation,” Kopf said. A number of such projects are currently in the works, including new subways in Abidjan and Algiers and an urban rail network in Kinshasa. Meanwhile, Tanzania is revamping its rail system, while Botswana and Namibia are building a Trans-Kalahari Railway. As World Bank transport researchers argued in a recent blog post, “investing in rail can help put African cities on a more sustainable track,” noting that many existing tracks could be adjusted to ferry people as well as goods. Indeed, that would be the wisest strategy to manage an impending glut of used gas cars: ensure that people can flourish without one, regardless of where they live.