Kenya wants to build electric cars at home — and just signed a $3 billion plan to do it

Kenya spends about $5 billion a year on imported petroleum. This week President William Ruto signed a framework deal to start keeping that money at home: a proposed $3 billion (KSh 390 billion) partnership between Endelevu Enterprise Corporation and China's Geely Auto Group to build electric vehicles in Kenya. The plan covers a 50,000-vehicles-a-year assembly plant, a second plant for 100,000 two-wheelers and light vehicles, 1,000 solar-powered charging hubs, and a digital platform for 100,000 green vehicles — with an estimated 2,000 direct jobs and 20,000-plus indirect ones. It is a framework for now (an MoU, not a final deal), but Kenya runs mostly on renewable electricity — geothermal, hydro, wind and solar — so its electric cars would genuinely be clean.