Driving Change: How Electric Vehicles Can Rise in the Global South

For many countries in the Global South, there is trade deficit for refined petroleum products to meet demand for road transportation. As domestic oil refining capacity cannot meet fuel demands in many countries in the Global South, net fuel imports are likely to remain a significant expenditure and an on-going dependency. The Global South net importers are a price-taker of transport fuels, with prices dictated by market factors outside of their control .

Eventually the ICE vehicle fleet in export destinations (in the Global North and Global South) for transport fuel net exporters of refined petroleum products will be substituted by BEVs. This is a significant risk for these transport fuel exporting nations and diversifying to opportunities in the Battery Electric Vehicle Value Chain is recommended as oil refining assets could quickly become economically stranded.