Ep. 16: Focus on Ethiopia, the world’s first country to ban non‑EVs since 2024! Johannes Huber ex GIZ shares his expert view on local sustainable energy and EVs.
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由机器转录整理而成。译文为机器翻译,可能存在错误。
欢迎来到 Smart Charge by RiDERgy 播客。我是 Claudio Geyken,RiDERgy 的创始人兼首席执行官。这是您的节目,让您了解有关电动汽车和车队能源管理和智能充电创新的所有内容。
欢迎来到 Smart Charge 播客的新一集。今天,我们要去非洲,去一个电动汽车领域领先的国家:埃塞俄比亚。埃塞俄比亚是世界上第一个禁止内燃机车的国家,所以只有电动汽车可以进口到该国,这从去年 2024 年 1 月开始。这是一个大胆的举措,充满了挑战,尚未制定总体规划。这是在 2023 年宣布的。我们深入探讨了所有的
能源系统、交通运输系统,甚至在此之前,国家的经济系统,以及它如何发展以适应电动汽车的需求。与发展经济学的绝对专家 Johannes Huba 一起,他在南非和埃塞俄比亚都拥有多年的经验,并向我们解释了现状如何、面临的挑战是什么,以及如何应对。他特别与我们分享了一些有趣的事实和他个人生活中的一些有趣轶事
来自那里。所以有很多关于这个国家的东西可以学习,我已经在开始前告诉你一件事,这样你就可以自己泡一杯好咖啡了:阿拉比卡,这种植物,咖啡植物,来自埃塞俄比亚。所以让我们深入探讨这个话题,关于一个与众不同的国家埃塞俄比亚向电动汽车迈出的大胆举步。好的,你好 Johannes,你今天怎么样?很好,很好。我很高兴来到这里。非常感谢。你呢?谢谢,我也很好。虽然
播客工作室今天有点热,但我们会处理的。这也许能给人一点埃塞俄比亚的感觉,因为这一集就是关于埃塞俄比亚的。但在我们深入埃塞俄比亚之前,为了帮助听众更多地了解你的背景,你能解释一下你的背景吗,也许你在哪里长大,到目前为止做了什么?当然,当然。所以我来自康斯坦茨湖,来自德国南部,高中毕业后我就四处奔波,专注于非洲大陆的研究,尽管我的背景是经济学,但总是关注发展政策和发展经济学。在我的硕士学位中,我最近转向了能源经济学。但基础是经济学;这就是我所做的。通过非洲大陆的各种实习和项目,一切都始于南非,然后我
获得了在埃塞俄比亚的机会,我把我的重点从南部非洲地区转向了东部非洲地区。基本上,这就是我过去大约 10 年左右的样子。目前我又住在柏林。我在柏林已经住了大约 1.5 年,现在我在能源行业工作,为一个协会工作,这是地方公用事业协会,
尽管我的重点现在有所改变。我之前的工作是在埃塞俄比亚;我曾在埃塞俄比亚生活,我曾为德国发展合作机构工作。是的,这基本上总结了过去 10 年左右的情况。那么回到一步,你是如何对发展经济学产生热情的?好吧,那开始于,我想说,大约在 2012 年左右,当我第一次去南非时,我做了一个古典志愿服务,许多有兴趣做其他事情而不是直接学习的德国人都会做这种服务。我以"weltwärts"项目去了南非,这个项目也由政府资助。这个项目是什么?这个项目叫"weltwärts"。它来自
经济发展部,德国经济发展部。这是一个被许多有兴趣出国的年轻德国人广泛使用的项目。这个名字就是"weltwärts"。正是这样让我产生了兴趣。这基本上导致了我获得经济学和发展学的学士学位,我想我就一直在这个领域。
明白了。但有些东西首先驱使你参加那个项目,对吧?在南非做志愿工作。有什么触发因素吗?我想去看看其他的东西。我开始寻找不同的东西。我在高中时也在国外学过。我在美国交流了 6
个月。我甚至还有一个去埃及的小交流,我想那是在十年级或十一年级。所以我之前就对去其他地方产生了兴趣。然后我基本上在高中毕业后找了一年的事情来做,然后再去大学。明白了。那么在南非之后,你说你去了埃塞俄比亚。在我学士期间,我在南非做了几件事,主要是
一个学期的交换学习,一两个实习。然后我申请了 GIZ 和德国发展合作机构。正是这样。那里有一个职位在埃塞俄比亚,这与我当时的研究相当匹配,那是在组织发展方面。我必须说我的研究是在经济学方面,但该学院或该项目也关注制度。所以这相当适合,因为我随后
在 GIZ 获得的实习是在组织发展方面。所以这些话题相当吻合,这就是我为什么会得到埃塞俄比亚的那个职位,我想。好的,那埃塞俄比亚的任务是什么?你必须做什么?埃塞俄比亚是,所以 GIZ 在国外以项目形式组织,在许多国家 GIZ 有国家办事处。埃塞俄比亚有点特殊,因为埃塞俄比亚,你可以有点把它比作,它有点像
非洲的布鲁塞尔。这在组织上意味着 GIZ 有一个非常大的区域办事处,服务于整个地区,包括其他几个国家。我最初的实习确实是在那个区域办事处,我也在那里完成了我的工作,然后我后来又作为一名顾问在该办事处工作,首先是关于能源,然后是关于电动汽车的话题。所以我有相当长的时间在那里工作。
好的,那埃塞俄比亚的任务是什么?GIZ 在国外是以项目形式组织的,在许多国家 GIZ 有国家办事处。埃塞俄比亚有点特殊,因为埃塞俄比亚,你可以有点把它比作,它有点像非洲的布鲁塞尔,或者至少是东非的中心。
非洲大陆。哦,是吗?那很有趣,我不知道这一点。好的。我是说,非洲联盟总部在埃塞俄比亚,所以非洲联盟委员会在亚的斯亚贝巴。所以德国国际合作机构不仅有一个国家办公室,还有一个与非洲联盟的联络处。那也是一个项目办公室,我以前在那里工作。这个项目基本上是
关于组织发展的,也就是说,尝试实施不同的项目来帮助委员会更好地、更高效地开展工作。用简单的话来说就是这样。你去那里之前对埃塞俄比亚了解多少,或者你最初的印象是什么?老实说,一无所知。一无所知。我当时得到这份工作时心想,"哦,我要去埃塞俄比亚了。"我只是开始做一点研究
但我完全不知道会发生什么。在我年轻的思想中,我有点认为这会类似于我在南非看到的情况,所以我可能能够将我在南非的一些经验用到埃塞俄比亚。我得说,完全不是这样。完全不同。一个完全不同的世界,一个完全不同的文化。我只是凭空申请然后
跳入了未知的水域,你可以这么说。对我个人的经历来说,是的。你还记得最初真正让你震惊、给你留下深刻印象或让你惊讶的事情是什么吗?我对我到达那天的记忆非常清晰。那是埃塞俄比亚半夜的时候。通常飞往埃塞俄比亚的国际航班总是在午夜左右降落,要么在天还黑的时候降落,然后你基本上必须
乘坐出租车前往你的目的地。当然,我到达了,有一个出租车司机应该来接我,他的英语很少,他把我送到了某个客栈。我记得那,你是从德国来的。我是从德国来的。我走进了客栈,里面没有电,而且水在开始的时候,因为那一刻它根本就没有,你知道,这是一件事。那是一场
当地停电,也许是电压不稳,你永远不知道确切的问题是什么。可能只是这栋房子,也可能是周围的几栋房子。我还得说,在过去的几年里它变得稳定得多了,但当我住在那里时,这是日常的事情。我第一次到达是在
2018年,我在2021年离开。那是我的时间框架。所以当然那是一个全新的世界,我不会说这种语言,我什么都不知道。我没有真正的出行方式。那最初的几天里,我试图走出去,四处走走,并尽量获取一些基本的东西,做饭的食物。只是一个
非常不同的世界,尝试做你在德国也会做的基本事情,只是在一个非常不同的世界里。明白了。根据你的经历,埃塞俄比亚在哪些方面与南非不同?首先,南非有相当多的基本设施可以正常运作,它的发展程度更高一些。你确实有通常可以正常工作的电力和供水。我是说,这是
一件你会意识到的事情,但在文化上差异巨大。埃塞俄比亚文化与南非文化当然差异巨大。这是一种非常独特而有趣的文化,我会说与南非、肯尼亚或坦桑尼亚等国相比,它的可比性较低,我认为这些国家与埃塞俄比亚文化相比与南非有更多的相似之处。你能举一个例子来让它更具体一些吗?
根据我的经历,按照我的看法,埃塞俄比亚人非常尊重他人,极其尊重,而且他们也保持距离,这是我在日常生活中感受很深的。我能感受到他们对外国人肯定有兴趣,但尊重的态度使他们不会侵犯你的空间、你的个人领地。那不是一回事
所以你当然可以四处走动。你总是一个引人关注的人,因为你来自别的地方,这很明显,但绝对不是那样。没有人会特别费力。当你向他们寻求帮助时,人们通常非常乐于助人,但不会有很多人,例如,主动问你是否需要帮助。所以那基本上是我在整个
时间里经历的主要差异。有趣。在我们转向今天的重大话题之前,涉及流动出行和能源,并深入探讨这一点,首先再关于德国国际合作机构的一点,你在那里做了更多关于什么的工作。你三年的主要成果是什么?你想强调的有趣项目有哪些?嗯,我在做一个项目。每个项目当然
总是因项目而异,但通常一个项目周期大约3到4年。我在那里的时间几乎正好是3年,所以我在那里经历了一个项目阶段。我们实施的项目涉及人力资源和财务,我的重点是财务发展。这基本上包括与财务部门合作,以增加
预算过程。所以在项目阶段结束时,我们已经制定了一种方法,供非洲联盟委员会今后能更好地进行预算过程。你可以把它想象为一份手册,旨在尽力协调整个委员会的整个流程。是的,这基本上就是这个项目。而且
大多数听众可能对埃塞俄比亚总体上了解不多。也许你可以根据你的知识提供一些,关于该国的核心指标,这样人们就能掌握和感受我们谈论的是什么样规模的国家等等。所以埃塞俄比亚,根据我的了解,我不知道具体的数字,但据我所知,该国大约有1.2亿人口。所以比德国大得多。正是如此,而且
该国的面积也更大。我会说大约是德国的2倍,也许2.5倍。它的组织方式也是联邦制的,所以你有像德国一样的联邦州和联邦政府。你有地区政府和联邦政府。地区政府和地区州在如何行事方面的权力相当大,例如,
他们在地方一级有自己的警察,然后还有联邦警察。这也类似于德国。此外,埃塞俄比亚在气候方面非常有趣。你有山脉一直延伸到大约5000米,真的,非常高的山脉,然后你有一个非常低的点,即海平面以下150米。负150。那是像地球上最低点吗?
不是地球上最低的点,但如果我没有完全搞错的话,它是或可能是非洲大陆最低的点之一。哇,它有名字吗?它叫达纳基尔凹地,位于该国的东北部,非常靠近厄立特里亚边界。所以你可以想象,由于海拔高度的这些差异,你会有很多不同类型的气候。首都,例如,
位于2300米的高度。亚的斯亚贝巴?亚的斯亚贝巴,正是。所以它是世界上五个左右最高的首都之一,这也意味着你有温度不会朝任何一个方向完全疯狂变化。是的,关于埃塞俄比亚这很有趣。从经济上讲,我知道咖啡的起源,我认为咖啡植物来自埃塞俄比亚,但我认为咖啡工业可能不如以前那么强大,但也许你也可以阐述该国的其他经济优势。当然,这也是一个已经与我们今天的大话题相关的话题,进入这个话题很有趣。咖啡是主要出口商品,是埃塞俄比亚出口的主要东西。是的。他们也出口其他几种农产品。例如,芝麻,我认为可能是
第二大商品。咖啡仍然是第一位的,然后是他们也出口的一些其他农产品。埃塞俄比亚没有其他大的生产分支或部门进行出口。还有一点花卉,我认为肯尼亚做的比例更大,但埃塞俄比亚也在做一些花卉生产和出口。但这就是经济。
很多人不住在城市里。整个国家有1.2亿人口,他们不会都住在首都或其他城市。他们住在该国的农村地区,从事自给农业。所以在这些村庄之外没有大量生产会被使用。当涉及到农村地区时,也有很多
的人生活没有连接电力。电力接入是一个很大的问题。许多人甚至没有电力供应,所以这也是为什么,现在我们来到我们今天的大话题,
贫困现象仍然普遍存在。你可以讨论关于贫困的整个问题,讨论有多少人,住在村里能自给自足的人生活有多贫困。但当然,由于气候变化等原因,他们能生产的食物也越来越少,然后就不足以养活所有人了,那么当然你绝对可以谈论
贫困。在非洲大陆内,埃塞俄比亚平均来说,比如说,是最贫穷的国家之一还是最富有的国家之一?我不确定与其他非洲国家相比你是否会称之为极度贫困,但与大陆上的其他国家相比,它可能处于贫困到中等的某个位置,但绝对不是最富有的国家之一。好的。那么说到能源,
能源网络的能源生产,你有什么数据可以分享吗?当然。埃塞俄比亚的能源主要来自水电。埃塞俄比亚已经建造,或仍在建造所谓的大埃塞俄比亚复兴大坝,这是青尼罗河上的一座巨大水坝。显然,如果以满负荷运行,它每年大约可以产生15太瓦时的电力。这足以
为整个国家供电。埃塞俄比亚目前的需求大约是每年12到13太瓦时。所以如果你以满负荷使用大坝,你将能够生产所有需要的电力。但当然,据我所知,该大坝目前还没有完全竣工,它已经投入运行,但并非所有涡轮都在运转。我认为总共大约有13或14台涡轮。我采访的那个人,你也可以分享,是来自世界资源研究所的。他是道路、汽车、卡车和公交车电气化方面的专家,他与我分享了一些信息并给了我一个最新情况。我和他进行了一次很好的对话,他告诉
我,根据官方数据,有2台涡轮在运行。而13或14台涡轮中的2台当然不是很多。我在网上找到了一些不同的资源,说也许已经是5或6台了,但我不确定现在的发电量。但埃塞俄比亚今天确实从水电获得大部分电力。大部分,这意味着还有其他能源。还有一点风电和一些老旧的燃油发电厂。但水电应该是未来的大事。他们有太阳能吗?不多。这可能是引入更多太阳能的战略的一部分,特别是在城市。因为当我们谈论电动汽车时,最好在人们的房子上装太阳能来给它们充电,但目前对他们来说还不是什么重要的东西
气体、石油资源和煤,他们在国内有这些自有资源吗?我不完全确定他们有多少天然气或石油资源,但由于他们专注于水电,我会认为可能不多,因为他们试图在一般能源生产中变得更加独立。这就是他们转向他们在国内拥有的资源的地方,那就是水电。
风能和少量旧的燃油电厂。但水电应该是未来的大事。他们有太阳能吗?不多。这可能是引入更多太阳能的战略的一部分,特别是在城市。因为当我们谈论电动汽车时,最好在人们的房子上装太阳能来给它们充电,但目前对他们来说还不是什么重要的东西
气体、石油资源和煤,他们在国内有这些自有资源吗?我不完全确定他们有多少天然气或石油资源,但由于他们专注于水电,我会认为可能不多,因为他们试图在一般能源生产中变得更加独立。这就是他们转向他们在国内拥有的资源的地方,那就是水电。
所以现在有一个令人兴奋的事实,或者说非常令人惊讶的事实,这也是我们在这个播客中谈论埃塞俄比亚的关键原因之一,它是世界上第一个禁止销售新的内燃机汽车的国家,因此在任何其他国家之前选择了电动汽车,甚至在挪威之前,而挪威可能是人们想到电动汽车领导力时想到的国家
电动汽车领导力。你在埃塞俄比亚的出行体验如何?让我们先从总体上谈谈出行,然后我们可以转向讨论电动出行在该国是如何实现和可行的,以及成功的障碍是什么。那么出行总体上,你的个人体验是什么,你观察到了什么?例如,它与德国这样的国家有何不同?好的
公共交通,让我们从那开始,围绕小巴组织:可以容纳大约15人的丰田小巴。这是你在许多非洲国家都能找到的典型特征。但他们也拥有由亚的斯亚贝巴市组织的相当大的公交车队。然后就公共交通而言,他们还有一种
,你可以称之为城市线路,他们称之为轻轨,类似于,我不知道,柏林的S-Bahn,不完全是有轨电车,更像是S-Bahn,地上。它是由中国投资者建造的,大约8到10年前或类似的时间。当我来的时候,它已经存在并投入运营了。这本来应该是
某种意义上也能推动城市在公共交通方面的发展,因为这座城市当然,人们一直在涌入城市。所以从人口来看它在增长,但城市基础设施却落后了。他们目前投入大量资金来满足城市的需求。但这也是为什么没有真正的官方数字,即使当你谷歌搜索时,当你上维基百科时,我相信他们会给出
300到400万左右的数字,但我会说实际上远远高于此,因为人们每天一直在涌入城市。所以从人口来看,比柏林大得多。是的,是的。所以那是一部分,公共交通。在私人方面,当然有小型私人汽车,你会看到很多看起来像丰田雅力士的汽车。它
叫丰田Vitz。这是埃塞俄比亚一款非常受欢迎的汽车,容易进口,容易获得,容易获得配件。所以这是一款非常受欢迎的汽车。他们也有类似优步的东西;他们称之为Ride。这是一家叫Ride的公司,完全没错。据我所知,这家初创公司是几年前创办的,并且
非常成功。据我所知,他们创办的,可能现在仍然是一家全女性公司。有趣,相当有趣,现在是一家超级成功的公司。所以这也决定了你在城市中如何出行。当然,在国家其他地方,我会说亚的斯亚贝巴作为一个城市与国家其他地方之间存在很大差距,是的
你确实有穿过乡村从一个城市到另一个城市的交通,但埃塞俄比亚也非常专注于建造小型飞行场,所以他们基本上可以为他们的人口提供乘飞机到达国家不同地方的能力。这相当独特,我想,至少我以前没有听说过。这也很便宜吗?飞机通常相对来说
,有两个不同的价格。一个是给埃塞俄比亚人的价格,然后是给国际游客的价格。我这样说是因为有一个价格是给拥有埃塞俄比亚国籍或基本上被允许长期居住在那里的人,但游客支付更高的价格。尽管如此,这肯定以某种方式被补贴了。是的,大幅补贴。我的意思是,你可能支付的飞行价格和欧洲的瑞安航空一样便宜,这对
非洲大陆来说非常便宜,因为飞行通常不是很便宜。而且,在埃塞俄比亚能够乘飞机是一种很大的特权,非常贫困的人仍然会乘坐公交车,是的,绝对如此。有城际铁路系统吗?没有。有一班从亚的斯亚贝巴开往吉布提的火车。这需要,嗯,确实取决于情况,12、14、15小时,取决于行程如何进行。但这是
相当舒适的一班。这也是由中国投资者建造的,所以中国在埃塞俄比亚投资基础设施方面参与很大,不同的大型基础设施项目。所以道路方面,我想,就像在许多其他国家一样,中国人建造了道路。他们翻新了一些道路,中国投资者以及埃塞俄比亚投资者,所以他们通常共同参与。有些道路状况很好,有些道路状况也比较困难
有埃塞俄比亚所依赖的大道路在亚的斯亚贝巴和吉布提之间。埃塞俄比亚的进口基本上都通过吉布提港进行,因为他们没有海上通道。他们没有海上通道,完全正确。所以他们能够获得的唯一港口,或者说他们正在使用的港口,是吉布提港。所以所有装着集装箱的卡车都必须走一条
特定的路线,那条道路当然被大量使用,因此被破坏,维护不善,或实际上相反:每天有这么多卡车经过,即使你翻新了道路,它也不会花很长时间就再次被破坏。就私人乘用车所有权而言,考虑到该国的经济形势,我想拥有一辆
汽车的是非常少的少数人。我会这样说,是的。当然,再次强调亚的斯亚贝巴和其他地区较大城市与乡村之间存在很大差距。但是的,我不知道例如德国的数字,在德国我们大约有5000万辆汽车。5000万。是的。所以这不是人口1比1的比例,但仍然相当可观。我不知道
埃塞俄比亚的比率,但如果接近那个数字,我会感到惊讶。是的。那么现在转向电动出行,我想这也是人们会感到惊讶的原因。根据你的了解,他们如何应对向电动出行的转变?根据你进行的对话和你的经验,实际上是如何运作的?我想,根据我的经验,非洲通常有很多二手车被购买。
这样的禁止燃油车的禁令在实践中是如何执行的,会出现什么样的挑战?然后我们还会讨论他们如何解决这些挑战。所以这当然是一个相当激进的举措,你知道吗,2024年1月,我们完全禁止了进口。也许你也知道这一举措的背景。有很多原因,但基本上我之前已经提到的大事是
我们想要独立。因为有了内燃发动机,你需要的是燃料。埃塞俄比亚没有燃料。他们必须进口燃料,这需要花费大量美元,而他们也没有美元。所以他们试图在能源方面变得更加独立,同时将他们宝贵的美元储备用于他们真正需要的其他事情。当然,电气化是实现这一目标的一项战略。
该战略的实施相比我们在德国讨论的情况要激进得多,让我们试着慢慢地逐步淘汰,2035年,正是这样。在埃塞俄比亚,是2024年1月,我认为他们在一年前左右宣布了这一消息。相当激进。在埃塞俄比亚,进口禁令基本上就是一个禁令,因为汽车只能进口。只有,埃塞俄比亚可能有很小的
生产部分,但大多数汽车都是进口的。所以禁令只与进口有关,还是也与埃塞俄比亚的生产有关?我不太确定,稍后必须核实一下。但进口禁令已经是大部分了,是的。所以这些就是整个举措的原因。
几年前还有另一项指令禁止进口超过5年车龄的汽车,我也必须核实一下,但大致就是这样。所以他们试图只引进较新的汽车,但仍然是燃油车。然后他们采取了一个非常激进的举措。我们说的只是汽车,还是也包括其他类型的车辆?
也包括其他类型的车辆。他们说的是整个内燃发动机。所以意味着公交车、小巴,我可以想象这会产生多大的影响,例如对出租车司机,不是我们在ride项目中谈过的那些,因为他们会为他们的司机获得汽车。但传统的出租车司机,你知道吗,他们甚至赚不到足够的钱来加满一整箱油,
更不用说买一辆全新的汽车了,这将非常困难。那么让我们谈谈所有的挑战,这样我们就有了一座漂亮的山峰要攀登,也许我们会找到一些绳索或其他手段来更好地攀登它。那么由于这一点,你还看到了哪些其他挑战?挑战是,好吧,你有任何电动车都会面临的典型挑战。它们的续航能力不如燃油车,
这对于在埃塞俄比亚城市之间的出行来说有点问题,因为距离非常远,而且城市之间根本没有充电站。在我们交谈的此刻,亚的斯亚贝巴只有2个公共充电站。两个公共充电站,想想这有多疯狂。所以人们在家里给汽车充电。
普通插座还是壁挂式充电器?他们确实在安装壁挂式充电器。我认为他们现在正在运行一些商业模式,他们销售汽车时配备壁挂式充电器,这样人们可以在家里更好地充电。但公共充电站是由埃塞俄比亚的电信供应商埃塞俄比亚电信公司运营的,整个城市,也就是整个国家,只有2个。所以所有其他城市都没有
任何充电站,高速公路上也还没有,因为这一切来得太快了。所以他们必须先实施所有这些,这就是为什么人们当然仍在使用他们的普通燃油车。但它正在缓慢改变。无论何时只要他们可以,我想他们正在缓慢转向更便宜的电动车。我说更便宜是因为在埃塞俄比亚进口汽车通常有非常高的税。
税收是多少?有不同种类的税。例如,你对你销售或购买的任何东西都要支付6%的税,不仅仅是汽车,而是国内的任何东西。政府要求其中的6%。所以你购买的任何汽车,你已经支付了6%的统一税。针对汽车的税取决于汽车的类型,无论它是否被认为是豪华车或
可以说是满足基本人类需求的汽车。这就是为什么我不能给你一个具体数字。我知道在最初实施燃油车进口禁令时,他们没有特别针对电动车的税。所以电动车基本上是免税的,你有其他种类的税,例如6%,但没有特定的电动车税。现在他们正在缓慢但肯定地重新引入它。
目前他们的税率是在6%的基础上再加15%,所以你总共要付21%,然后我认为根据你进口的车辆类型,仍然可能有一些豪华税。这是一个方面,但另一方面,二手车市场,你绝对必须为二手燃油车支付比电动车更高的税。这就是为什么,当然,人们能够更容易、更轻松地买得起电动车。
等等,我们说的是进口的二手燃油车吗?不,不再了,但你有本地二手车市场,当地的二手市场。那更贵:如果你现在在国内购买二手燃油车,比购买新进口的电动车要贵。在德国我们不知道这种,我们没有对二手车的税。这就是为什么,正是,我们没有。我可以在不支付税的情况下把我的车卖给你,而在埃塞俄比亚你有
支付额外税款。有趣。完全同意。那么你看,现在世界上可能最便宜的电动车之一就是比亚迪海鸥。这个车在埃塞俄比亚现在变得超级受欢迎吗?或者他们能买得起哪些型号?我不确定是不是这个具体的比亚迪车型,但我知道他们从中国市场在埃塞俄比亚有非常好的优惠。而且
你在埃塞俄比亚路上看到的大多数电动车都是中国的。那么他们怎么考虑解决续航问题和充电点不足的问题呢,特别是,我想如果你住在城市里并且能在家充电,那没问题。不过,对于我们谈到的所有其他使用场景,用于物流的卡车和用于运送人员的公交车,我明白我们说的不是飞机,对吧?我们
,飞机就是飞机,对,所以飞机没有被禁。那么对于其他两个使用场景,现在还没有真正好的解决方案,或者根本没有解决方案来处理所有这些问题。当涉及到这些指令时,最开始听起来总是非常严格,但后来你必须找到一种方式来让,或者试图让每个人适应它,或者试图让它对
每个人都可行。我知道你仍然可以获得特殊许可,我们可以这样叫它特殊许可,当你有很好的理由时可以进口车辆。例如,你需要它来真正完成城市之间的运输工作,你能真正证明你不能用电动卡车完成你的工作,你不能用电动卡车进行运输。所以这种情况存在,仍然有特殊许可,但另一件事也是现在
你仍然有很多在运行的二手车。人们继续使用它们并为燃料支付很多钱,因为燃料价格极其高昂。燃料价格与德国相当吗?如果你比较燃料价格,我认为我们的价格在每升120比尔左右。目前1欧元等于160比尔。但你必须考虑通货膨胀,我认为我今天查了一下,
我们的通货膨胀率大约在14%。为了说明一下:当我在2019年、2020年、2021年住在那里时,燃料价格是每升20比尔。现在我们是120比尔。这是一个巨大的增长,还有货币贬值,我们从1欧元兑50比尔变到了1欧元兑160比尔。当然人们的薪水
增长没有那么快。普通人,该国的大多数人,每月赚取大约3000、4500、5000比尔。如果你有学位,也许7000到8000左右。我会说这是中产阶级的薪水。现在想象你必须用月薪支付120比尔购买1升燃料,这高得疯狂。那为什么没有更多的充电站呢?电信公司可以建立更多的充电站。你知道什么在阻止投资或充电点数量吗?
我猜,由于禁令来得这么突然,这是因为投资不会超快地到位,而且你也没有真正拥有一个很好的投资者基础设施对此感兴趣,但这只是我的假设。我知道埃塞俄比亚
正在转变,或试图转变许多行业。我猜这只是他们需要获得更多融资的一个行业,他们可能也会讨论是否可以将其提供给私人公司,因为埃塞俄比亚电信公司是由政府控制的公开企业。这也可能是一个问题。还有电网稳定性,你说自从你到达
该国以来它已经改善了?我们如何理解这些改进,现在的情况是什么,特别是考虑到如果电网不稳定你的车辆可能无法充电的风险?所以当然主要问题是:我们如何获得从大坝生产的这大块电力,顺便说一下,它非常靠近苏丹边界在该国的西部,和亚的斯亚贝巴,
例如,它几乎在中间。所以在那两点之间,在亚的斯亚贝巴和大坝之间,有相当长的一段距离,我不知道,可能2000公里,也许1500公里左右,不过这只是我的猜测。大约是这样的距离。而大坝在西边,抱歉,大坝在西边,在苏丹的边界处。
苏丹的边界,也不远处是南苏丹。问题是你如何将电力从不需要的那个地点运送到该国所有需要电力的地点。当然大的网络被加强了,他们更换了它们。有大量的中国投资,还有一些其他的国际捐赠者,国际社会提供了一些资金来
增加电网稳定性。但这不适用于当地水平,例如亚的斯亚贝巴的变电站还不够强。所以虽然他们在总体停电方面已经改善很多,但如果现在每个人都要给他们的电动车充电,这也会变得更加困难。所以是的,这是一个大挑战,不仅仅是发电,还要将它
输送到需要的地点。根据我的了解,巴西也拥有高比例的水力发电,曾经因干旱而遇到过巨大问题,因此想要更多地转向其他形式的能源,这样他们就不会仅仅依赖水力发电,而水力发电,考虑到全球变暖和干旱变得更加频繁,作为单一电源不是那么明智。我不确定你是否在埃塞俄比亚发现了任何相关的
关切。当涉及到这个大坝、这个具体项目时,并没有真正发现问题。在该国那个地区你真的没有干旱问题。他们有很多水,远远超过所需,这就是为什么我猜这也被选为像这样的项目。蓝尼罗河携带大量的水,所有这些水都来自埃塞俄比亚,埃塞俄比亚的那个地区,西部,相当
绿色的,相当郁郁葱葱。所以水资源短缺在那个地区不是太大的问题。这在国家的其他地区是个问题,但不是在他们生产水电的地方。好吧,那对他们来说是个好消息。我想是的。虽然你总是可以讨论水电在最终分析中的可持续性,因为在埃塞俄比亚,我看过卫星照片,水坝处的湖泊这些年来有多大
它巨大无比。这是非洲最大的水电大坝,比你的家乡还要大。肯定比康斯坦茨湖还大。肯定的。是的,我不确定,康斯坦茨湖,那实际上会是一个很好的对比。但我认为它比康斯坦茨湖还大。是的,我也这么认为。
是的。那么你看到了什么潜力呢?我们在这个播客中经常谈论智能充电、V2G、双向充电,特别是在能源系统有点不同的国家中的应用,可能有现货市场,以及波动性更强、更不稳定的可再生能源。你看到了什么应用?也许这也与能源系统的结构有关,从自由化的角度来看,你可以详细说明
这一点,以及你如何看待,或者你是否已经看到了与这些话题相关的东西,以及你看到的潜力。我认为我可以很快地说,潜力可能相当巨大。但当涉及到你刚才描述的所有事情时,目前还没有太多进展。没有自由化。只有一家国家电力公司
生产所有电力、运营电网并销售。是的,这是一个国有垄断企业。完全正确。我是说,他们在其他部门缓慢推进,例如,他们在电信领域向自由化迈进。他们已经开放了,所以不再只是一家公司;还有其他公司在投资。这在未来可能是电力领域的一个模式,但目前还不是这样。好的。也许对听众来说,还有一个
想法:如果我们像我们之前讨论的那样在人们的家中或公司的业务中拥有太阳能,并将其与电池储存相结合,或将电动汽车用作储存设施,最终用于电网不太稳定的时期,这为流动性整体节省资金开辟了机会。这些东西仍然需要开发,这不是一个直接的开始。不,绝对没错。
问题也在于现在是否真的存在一个市场,因为我觉得有趣的是你谈到了这个禁止进口内燃机车的政策。但要将埃塞俄比亚的局势与欧洲或德国的局势进行比较是极其困难的。在我看来,这是一个非常大胆的举措,但当然,当我回顾我在亚的斯亚贝巴的生活经历时,我基本上只体验过首都,对我来说,我很难想象亚的斯以外的人会对这么前沿的东西感兴趣,会进入这个领域。因为问题是,是否真的有这种需求?作为一个企业家,我忍不住想,哦天哪,考虑到有这么严格的法规强制每个人向电动汽车转变,私营公司进入
市场现在一定有很好的机会。你说了整个国家只有两个充电站,这明显需要有人来融资建设更多充电站,或者也许是围绕它的整个生态系统,不仅提供充电站,还提供整个能源管理、电动汽车等。但是,这样做也会是一个非常大胆和
冒险的举动,我想。绝对的。虽然你可能会惊讶,亚的斯亚贝巴对初创企业和创业有相当的吸引力。虽然是的,围绕它有很多监管,但我体验到很多人在这方面有很多热情。所以是的,虽然你在国家中面临挑战,但能量肯定是存在的。据我所知,外国投资者进来了,他们在寻找埃塞俄比亚合作伙伴一起在不同的基础设施中进行投资。所以这确实在发生,尽管在监管的限制下是有限度的。顺便说一下,这是GIZ做的事情吗,这类项目?这也可能是一个有趣的发展项目
给GIZ?是的,当然。从长远来看,这肯定会很有趣。有商业支持项目和各种不同的支持项目。但当然,GIZ始终是政府的合作伙伴,这就是为什么它总是支持政府的战略。这对GIZ来说是最重要的。正确,我认为我们已经涵盖了很多内容。
我们确实如此。非常感谢你的时间和见解,约翰内斯。我希望听众们能够享受我们的播客,伴随着来自埃塞俄比亚的美妙阿拉比卡咖啡,这是这个国家的美好遗产之一,这肯定也帮助了我更好地理解,获得了更多的见解,并给了我一些动力和能量去访问这个国家,也许甚至在那里创办一些业务。非常感谢,
希望这个国家能够完成这一转变,并从这一大胆举措中获得回报。绝对的。非常感谢邀请我。讨论这些话题总是很棒,所以很高兴能在这里。如果听众想与你联系,或者你有最后的话想对他们说,是的,随时分享。是的,我是说,我们当然总是可以联系。我很乐意继续这个对话
或许,有什么特定的话题或渠道吗?让我知道。我的LinkedIn上也总是有我。请随时与我联系。很好。约翰内斯,感谢你再次参加Smart Charge by RiDERgy。这次对话非常有价值。
对我来说也是。感谢你,克劳迪奥。感谢聆听Smart Charge by RiDERgy。如果你想了解更多关于播客的内容或RiDERgy,请访问我们的网站。下期再见。
这些话题,因为我认为它们极其重要,但关于这些话题的对话并不是很广泛。所以能够谈论这些话题并继续讨论总是很棒的。好的,祝你接下来的日子愉快,Johannes。非常感谢。你也是。谢谢。这是另一期 Smart Charge by RiDERgy 播客。Johannes 的背景真是太有趣了,他很早就对发展经济学产生了浓厚兴趣,并带来了在南
非洲的有趣项目经验,以及非常国际化的背景,特别是他对埃塞俄比亚这个国家的深入了解。多么迷人的国家,不是吗?我特别觉得海拔差异,从-150米到5000米,非常有趣,还有运输方式、飞机,以及他们如何根据海拔差异四处移动,以及他们如何大胆地向电动汽车迈进,作为第一个真正试图为无法
承受这些高燃油价格的人口产生影响的国家。所以考虑到这丰富的可再生能源,这完全是有意义的。不过,建立充电基础设施、拥有可靠的电网确实是一个挑战,而且只有很少的充电站,比如在亚的斯亚贝巴整个国家只有两个大充电站,肯定会带来改进事情的挑战和机遇。我很想看看这在未来几年如何发展。我希望你对这个国家、电动出行前景,特别是
V2G 的前景有了很多了解,随着事情的发展,V2G 可能会成为解决方案的一部分。我期待你在下一期中收听,不要忘记与可能对这类话题感兴趣的人分享,并给我们五星评价。再见。
Welcome to the Smart Charge by RiDERgy podcast. This is Claudio Geyken, founder and CEO of RiDERgy. This is your show to learn about all things energy management and smart charging innovation for electric vehicles and fleets.
Welcome to a new episode of the Smart Charge podcast. Today, we're going to Africa, to a country that is leading the way in electric vehicles: Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the first country in the world that has banned ICEs, so only electric vehicles can be imported into the country, and this since last year, January 2024. This is a bold move, filled with challenges, where there is no master plan that has been developed yet. It was announced just in 2023. We dive deep into all the aspects of the
energy system, the mobility system, and even before that, the economic system of the country - how it's developing to adjust to the needs of electric vehicles as well. With an absolute expert in development economics, Johannes Huba, he brings in several years of experience both in South Africa and Ethiopia, and explains to us how the situation is, what challenges are being faced, and how to tackle them. He especially shares with us a few fun facts and a few interesting anecdotes from his personal life
there. So there's lots to learn about the country, and one thing I'm already giving you before we start, so that you get yourself a nice coffee: Arabica - the plant, the coffee plant - came from Ethiopia. So let's dive deep into this topic of the bold move to electric vehicles from a country unlike any other: Ethiopia. Alright, hello Johannes, how are you today? Very good, very good. I'm happy to be here. Thanks a lot. How are you? Thanks, I'm also very good. Even though the
podcast studio is a bit hot today, but we'll manage. Maybe it gives a bit of an Ethiopian feeling too, as this episode is all about Ethiopia. But before we dive into Ethiopia, to help the listeners understand more about your background, can you explain your background - maybe where you grew up and what you did so far? Sure, sure. So I'm originally from Lake Constance, from the south of Germany, and after
high school I've been around a lot, focusing my studies on the African continent, even though my background is economics - but always with a focus on development policy and development economics. And more recently, in my master's degree, I turned towards energy economics. But the basics are in economics; that's what I did. And through various internships and projects on the African continent, it all started with South Africa, and then I
got opportunities in Ethiopia, and I sort of changed my focus from the Southern African region to the East African region. That's basically, in very short, how my last - you could say 10 years or so - looked like. And I currently live in Berlin again. I've been in Berlin for about 1.5 years, and I work in the energy industry now for an association, the Association of Local Public Utilities,
even though my focus has changed a bit now. My previous job was in Ethiopia; I used to live in Ethiopia, and I used to work for the German Development Corporation over there. Yeah, that's quite a basic rundown of what the last 10 years or so looked like. And so one step back - how did you get passionate about development economics? Well, that started, I would say, all
back around 2012 when I went to South Africa for the first time, and I did one of those classical voluntary services that a lot of Germans do when they're interested to do something else and not go straight to studying. I went to South Africa with the "weltwärts" program, which is financed by the government as well. What's the program? The program is called "weltwärts." It's from the Ministry for
Economic Development - the German Ministry for Economic Development. It's a very broadly used program by a lot of young Germans who are interested in going abroad. The name is "weltwärts," exactly. And that's how I got interested. That's basically what led to my bachelor's degree in economics and development, and I sort of just stayed in the field, I would say.
Got it. But something drove you to that program in the first place, right? To do the voluntary work in South Africa. Was there anything that triggered that? I wanted to go and see something else, I think. And I started to look for different things. I did go abroad during high school as well. I went to the US for an exchange for 6
months. I did a small exchange to Egypt even - I think it was grade 10 or 11. So I did get interested in going elsewhere before. And then I basically just looked for something to do after high school for a year before going to university. Understood. And so after South Africa, you said you went to Ethiopia. I did a couple of things in South Africa during my bachelor's, which was mostly
a semester abroad, one or two internships. And then I applied with GIZ and the German Development Corporation. Exactly. And there was a position in Ethiopia, which was quite matching to my studies at the time, which was in organizational development. I have to say my studies were in economics, but the faculty or the program also focused on institutions. So that was quite fitting because the internship that I then
got at GIZ was on organizational development. So the topics were quite matching, and that's why I got that one in Ethiopia, I would say. OK, and what was the mission about in Ethiopia? What did you have to do? Ethiopia was - so GIZ is organized in projects abroad, and in a lot of countries GIZ has country offices. Ethiopia is a bit more special because Ethiopia, you could sort of compare it with - it's sort of the Brussels of
the African continent. Oh, is it? That's funny, I didn't know that. OK. I mean, you have the African Union in Ethiopia, so the headquarters of the African Union is in Addis Ababa. The commission of the African Union is in Addis Ababa. So GIZ not only has a country office, but also a liaison office to the African Union. And that's also a project office, and that's where I used to work. And the project was basically
on organizational development, meaning trying to implement different projects to help the commission do their work better, more efficiently. That's it in easy terms. Did you know anything about Ethiopia before going there, or what were your first impressions? To be very honest, not a single thing. Not a single thing. I thought to myself when I got the job, "Oh wow, I'm going to Ethiopia." I just started to research a little
bit, but I had no idea what to expect. And in my young mind, I sort of thought it was going to be a bit similar to what I saw in South Africa, so I might be able to use some experiences from South Africa in Ethiopia. I have to say - nothing whatsoever. Completely different. A completely different world, a completely different culture. I just applied out of the blue and went
into cold water, you can say. For my personal experience, yeah. And what do you remember were the first things that really shocked you, or impressed you, or were surprising to you? I remember the day of my arrival quite vividly. It was in the middle of the night in Ethiopia. Usually the international flights that come into Ethiopia always land around midnight, or they land when it's still dark, and you basically have to
take a taxi to your location. Of course, I arrived, there was a taxi driver who was supposed to pick me up with very little English, and he drove me to some guest house. I remember that - you got there from Germany. I got there from Germany. I went into the guest house and there was no electricity, and the water in the beginning - because at that moment it was simply out, you know, a thing. There was a
local blackout - maybe a brownout, you never knew exactly what the problem was. It might only have been the house, it might have been a couple of houses around. I also have to say that in the last couple of years it has become a lot more stable, but it was a daily thing when I used to live there. I arrived for the first time in
2018 and I left in 2021. That was the time frame. So of course it was a completely new world, and I didn't know the language, I didn't know anything. I didn't really have a way to get around. It was those first couple of days trying to go outside, just be around, and try to get a couple of basic things - food to cook with. Just a
very different world, trying to do the basics that you also do in Germany, just in a very different world. Got it. And in which ways was Ethiopia different to South Africa, based on your experience? Well, first of all, South Africa has quite a lot of basics that just work - it's a bit more developed. You do have electricity and water supply that usually works. I mean, that's
one thing that you do realize, but culturally it's a huge difference. The Ethiopian culture is extremely different from, of course, the South African culture. And it's a very distinct and interesting one that I would say is less comparable to countries like South Africa or Kenya or Tanzania, which I see more similarities to South Africa compared to the Ethiopian culture. Can you give one example just to make it a bit more
tangible? In my experience, in how I view it, Ethiopians are quite respectful - extremely respectful - and they also keep a distance, and that's what I felt in daily life a lot. I could feel that there is definitely interest towards foreigners, but sort of the respect was there not to go in your way, into your space. That wasn't a thing
So you could walk around, of course. You were always a person of interest because you were from somewhere else, obviously, but it was not at all like that. No one would go out of their way. People were rather very helpful when you asked them, but not many people would, for example, ask you if you needed any help. So that was sort of the main difference that I experienced throughout my
whole time. Interesting. And before we move to the big topic of today, related to mobility and energy, and deep dive into that as well, just first on the GIZ again - a bit more on what you did there. What was the main outcome of your three years? What were the interesting projects that you did that you want to highlight? Well, I was working on one project. Every project is, of course,
always different from project to project, but usually a project is around 3 to 4 years. My time there was pretty much 3 years, so I was there for one project phase. The project we implemented was on human resources and finances, and my focus was on financial development. That basically included working with the finance department on how to increase
the budgeting process. So at the end of the project phase we had developed a way on how to, in the future, do a better job on the budgeting process. You can think of it as a manual that was there to try and harmonize the whole process across the Commission of the African Union. Yeah, that was pretty much the project. And
most listeners might not know so much about Ethiopia in general. Maybe you can give some, based on what you know, the core indicators of the country so that people get a grasp and feel about which size of country and so on we're talking about. So Ethiopia - to my knowledge, I don't know the specific numbers, but to my knowledge we have around 120 million people in the country. So much larger than Germany. Exactly, and the
size of the country is also larger. I would say about 2 times, maybe 2.5 times the size of Germany. It's also organized in a federal way, so you have federal states like in Germany and a federal government like in Germany as well. You have the regional governments and the federal government. The regional governments and the regional states are quite strong in how they do things, and they, for example,
have their own police on the local level, and then there is the federal police. That's a similarity to Germany as well. On top of that, Ethiopia is quite interesting when it comes to the climate. You have mountains that go all the way up to about 5,000 m - really, really high mountains - and then you have a very low point which is −150 m below sea level. Minus 150. Is that like the lowest point on
Earth or something? Not the lowest point on Earth, but if I'm not completely mistaken, it is or might be one of the lowest points on the African continent. Wow, does it have a name? It's called the Danakil Depression, and it's in the north-east of the country, very close to the Eritrean border. So you can imagine with these differences in altitude you get a lot of different kinds of climate. The capital, for
example, is at 2,300 m. Addis Ababa? Addis Ababa, exactly. So it's one of the five or so highest capitals of the world, which also means you have temperatures that don't go completely crazy in either direction. Yeah, that's quite interesting about Ethiopia. And economically speaking, I know the origin of coffee - I think the coffee plant comes from Ethiopia - but I think the coffee industry might not be as
strong as it still was, but maybe you can also elaborate on other economic strengths of the country. Sure, that's a topic that's also already connected to our big topic today, which is interesting to go into. Coffee is the main export, the main thing that Ethiopia exports. It is, yes. They have a couple of other agricultural products that they export as well. For example, sesame is, I think, probably the
2nd biggest good. Coffee is still the first, and then some other agricultural products that they also export. There is not a big other branch or sector of production that Ethiopia exports. A little bit of flowers as well - Kenya is doing a bigger part, I think, but Ethiopia is also doing some flower production and export. But that's sort of the economy.
A lot of people don't live in cities. With 120 million in the whole country, they're not all going to live in the capital or in other cities. They live in rural areas of the country and they do subsistence farming. So there's not a lot of production that you would use outside these villages. When it comes to the rural areas, also a lot
Of poverty is still seen around as well. You can discuss the whole thing on poverty, how much, how poor are people that actually live in a village and can produce everything they need for themselves. But of course with climate change and all of that, the food that they are able to produce is also becoming less and less, and then it's not enough anymore to feed everyone, and then of course you definitely can talk about
poverty. And within the African continent, is Ethiopia on average, let's say, among the poorest or among the richest countries on the continent? I'm not sure whether you would call it extremely poor when you look at other African countries, but it's probably poor to middle somewhere compared to other countries on the continent, but definitely not among the richest. All right. And talking energy then, what's the energy production in the
energy grid - data that you can share? Sure. Energy in Ethiopia comes mainly from hydropower. Ethiopia has built, or is still in the process of finishing building, the so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is a huge dam on the Blue Nile. Apparently, if used at full capacity, it can produce somewhere around 15 terawatt hours per year of electricity. And that's
enough to power the whole country. Ethiopia has a demand of around 12 to 13 terawatt hours per year currently. So if you use the dam at full capacity, you would be able to produce all the electricity needed. But of course right now the dam is not completely finished, to my knowledge, and it's operational, but not all turbines. I think you have a total of around 13 or 14 turbines. The person I spoke to,
the interview that I had - you can also share that - was with the World Resources Institute. One of their experts on electrification of roads, cars, trucks, and buses shared a couple of things with me and gave me an update. I had a very good conversation with him, and he told
me that, according to official data, 2 turbines are running. And 2 turbines out of 13 or 14 is of course not a lot. I found a couple of different sources online that said maybe it's already 5 or 6, but I'm not sure on how much production there is right now. But Ethiopia does get most of its electricity from hydropower today. Most - that means there are other sources too. There is a little bit of
wind and a little bit of old oil power plants. But hydropower is supposed to be the big thing for the future. And do they have solar at all? Not much. That might be part of the strategy to bring in more solar, especially in the city. Since when we talk about electric vehicles, it would be great to have solar on people's houses to charge them, but currently not something significant
for them. And gas, oil resources, and coal - do they have any of those in the country as their own resource? I'm not completely sure on how many gas or oil resources they have, but since they're focusing on hydropower, I would believe it's probably not a lot, because they're trying to become more independent with their general energy production. And that's where they're turning to what they have in the country, which would be hydropower.
So now one of the exciting, or very surprising, facts - and that's also one of the key reasons we're talking about Ethiopia in this podcast, making a deep dive - is the fact that it's been the first country in the world that has banned the sale of new ICEs, and therefore chose EVs before any other country, even before Norway, which is probably the one that people have in mind when they think about
EV leadership. How was your experience in Ethiopia in terms of mobility? Let's talk first in general about mobility, and then we can switch gears and see how e-mobility is lived and viable in the country and what the hurdles are to make it successful. So mobility in general - what was your personal experience, and what did you observe? How does it differ, for example, from a country like Germany? Sure,
public transport - let's start with that - is organized around minibuses: small Toyota minibuses that can seat around 15 people. That's something very typical you find in a lot of African countries. But they also have quite a large fleet of buses organized by the city of Addis Ababa. And then on top of that, when it comes to public transport, they have a sort of
- you can call it a city line, they call it the light rail - comparable to, I don't know, in Berlin the S-Bahn, not really a tram, something more like an S-Bahn, above ground. And it was built by Chinese investors, let's say 8 to 10 years ago or something like that. It was already around and operational when I came. And that was supposed to
Sort of also bring the city forward on public transport, because the city, of course, the people come into the city all the time. So it grows when it comes to population, but the infrastructure of the city sort of lagged behind. They're investing a lot currently to actually meet the demand that the city has. But that's why there's also not really official numbers, even though when you Google it, when you go on Wikipedia, I'm sure they say
numbers around 3 to 4 million, but I would say it's much further up, because people enter the city all the time every day. So much bigger than Berlin, I would say, in terms of the population. Yes, yeah. So that's one part, public transport. Privately, of course, there are small private cars - you see a lot of these cars that look like a Toyota Yaris. It's
called the Toyota Vitz. It's a very popular car in Ethiopia - easy to import, easy to get, easy to get spare parts for. So that's a very popular car. And they also have something like Uber; they call it Ride. It's a company called Ride, exactly. It was started, as far as I know, as a startup a couple of years ago and
very successful. And as far as I know, they started and probably still are an all-women company. Interesting - quite an interesting, super successful company nowadays. So that also adds to how you get around in the city. And then of course, in the rest of the country - I would say there's a big gap between Addis Ababa as a city and the rest of the country where, yes,
you do have transport that goes from city to city through the countryside, but Ethiopia also focused a lot on building small airfields, so they can basically offer their population the ability to get to all the different places in the country by plane. It's quite unique, I guess - at least I hadn't heard that before. And is it cheap as well? Planes are usually relatively
- there are two different prices. There's a price for Ethiopians and then there's a price for internationals. I'm saying this because there is a price for people that have Ethiopian citizenship or that are basically allowed to live there long term, but tourists pay a higher price. Still, that must be subsidized somehow. Heavily, yeah. I mean, you might pay for a flight as cheap as Ryanair in Europe, which is very cheap for
the African continent, because flights usually are not very cheap. And still, it's a big privilege to be able to fly in Ethiopia - the very poor would still take a bus, yes, absolutely. And is there a train system, intercity? No. There is one train that goes from Addis Ababa to Djibouti. It takes - well, it really depends - 12, 14, 15 hours, depending on how the ride goes. But that's
quite a comfortable one. It was built by Chinese investors as well, so the Chinese are very big in investing in Ethiopia - different big infrastructure projects. So the roads as well, I imagine, like in many other countries, the Chinese have built roads. They've renewed some of the roads - Chinese investors as well as Ethiopian investors, so they usually share it. Some of the roads are in great condition, some of the roads are in tough
condition as well. There is the big road that Ethiopia depends on between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. The imports of Ethiopia basically all come through the port of Djibouti, because they don't have access to sea. They don't have access to sea, exactly. So the only port that they have access to, or sort of that they are using, is the port of Djibouti. So all the trucks that come with the containers have to take a
certain route, and that road is of course heavily used and therefore torn down, not well maintained - or actually the opposite: there are so many trucks every day that even if you renewed the road, it wouldn't take long for it to be torn down again. And in terms of private ownership of passenger cars, given also the economic situation of the country, I imagine it's a very small minority that owns a
car. I would say so, yeah. Of course, again, big gap between Addis Ababa and other regional bigger cities compared to the countryside. But yes, I don't know what the numbers are, for example, for Germany - in Germany we have about 50 million cars. 50 million. Yeah. So it's not a ratio of 1 to 1 with the population, but still it's quite significant. I don't know
the ratio in Ethiopia, but I would be surprised if it were anywhere close to that. Yeah. And so moving now to e-mobility - I guess that's also the reason one would be surprised. How are they coping with the switch to e-mobility, in your knowledge? Based on the conversations you've had and the experience you've had, how does it work in practice? I imagine - from my experience - you have lots of secondhand vehicles usually being bought in Africa.
How is such a ban on ICE vehicles lived in practice, and what challenges occur? And then we will also move to how they are solving these challenges. So it was quite a drastic move, of course, to say, you know what, January 2024, we completely banned the import. Maybe you also know the background of the move. There are a lot of reasons, but basically the big thing that I already mentioned before
is: we want to be independent. Because with internal combustion engines, what you need is fuel. Ethiopia doesn't have fuel. They have to import the fuel, which needs a lot of dollars to do so, which they also don't have. So they're trying to become more independent when it comes to energy, as well as use their precious dollar reserves for other things that they really need them for. And of course, electrification is then one strategy to get there one day.
The implementation of that strategy is quite drastic compared to, you know, what we discuss in Germany - let's try to slowly, slowly phase out, 2035, exactly. In Ethiopia it was January 2024, and I think they announced it a year before, something like that. Quite drastic. And an import ban in Ethiopia basically means a ban, because cars are only imported. There's only - there might be a very small
part of production in Ethiopia, but most cars are imported. So is the ban only related to imports, or is it also related to production in Ethiopia? I'm not sure about that - have to fact-check that later. But the import ban is already the bulk of it, yeah. So those are the reasons behind
the whole move. There was another directive a couple of years earlier that banned the import of cars that were older than 5 years - I would have to fact-check that as well - but something like that. So they tried to only bring in newer cars, but still ICE cars. And then they made a very drastic move. Are we talking cars only, or also other types of vehicles?
Other types of vehicles too. They say the internal combustion engine as a whole. So meaning buses, minibuses - which, I can imagine how much that will impact, for example, taxi drivers, not the ones we talked about in the ride project, because they would get their cars for their drivers. But the traditional taxi drivers, you know, they don't even earn enough money to fill up a full tank,
let alone buy a whole new car, which is going to be very difficult. So let's talk about all the challenges so that we have a nice mountain to climb, and then maybe we'll find some rope or other means to climb it better. So what other challenges do you see due to that? The challenges - well, you have the typical challenges that you have with any EV. They don't go as
far as the ICE engine cars, which is a bit of a problem for going between cities in Ethiopia because the distances are very far, and you simply don't have charging stations in between. Currently, at the moment we are speaking, there are 2 public charging stations in Addis Ababa. Two public charging stations, which is crazy when you think about it. So people charge their cars at home.
Normal sockets or wall boxes? They do implement wall boxes. I think they are running business models now where they sell cars with wall boxes, so people can charge better at home. But then public charging stations, which are run by the telecommunications provider of Ethiopia, Ethio Telecom, there are 2 in the whole city - meaning also in the whole country. So all the other cities don't have
anything, and the highways have nothing yet, because it all came so drastic. So they have to implement all of that first, and that's why people are still, of course, using their normal ICE cars. But it's only slowly changing. Whenever people can, I guess they are slowly moving towards cheaper EVs. I'm saying cheaper because there is usually
a very high tax on importing cars in Ethiopia. How much is the tax? There are different kinds of taxes. For example, you have a 6% tax on anything you sell or buy - not only for cars, but anything in the country. The government wants 6% of that. So any car you buy, you already pay a 6% flat tax. The tax for cars specifically differs depending on what kind of car it is, whether it is considered a luxury car or a
car for basic human needs, so to say. So that's why I can't give you a specific figure. I know that in the beginning, when the import ban on ICE vehicles came in, they didn't have a tax specifically on EVs. So EVs were basically tax-free - you had the other kinds of taxes, the 6% for example - but there was no specific EV tax. Now they are reintroducing it slowly but surely.
Currently they're standing at 15% on top of the 6%, so you're standing at 21%, and then I think there are still some luxury taxes depending on what kind of vehicle you import. That's the one thing, but then on the other hand, the used car market - you definitely have to pay higher taxes for used cars, used ICE cars, compared to EV vehicles. That's why, of course, people can afford an EV much better, much easier.
So wait a second, are we talking about used ICEs being imported? No, not anymore, but you have a used local market - the local used market. That's more expensive: if you buy a used ICE in the country right now than if you buy a new imported one. In Germany we don't know this sort of - we don't have taxes on used vehicles. That's why - exactly, we don't have that. I can sell my vehicle to you without paying tax, whereas in Ethiopia you have
to pay extra tax. Interesting. Exactly. And do you see - so there's probably one of the cheapest EVs in the world right now, this BYD Seagull. Is there any trend that this is becoming super popular now in Ethiopia, or which models are they able to afford? I'm not sure if it's this specific BYD model, but I know that they have very good offers from the Chinese market in Ethiopia. And
most EVs that you see on the road in Ethiopia are Chinese. And how are they thinking about solving the range issue and the lack of charge points - especially, I imagine, if you live in a city and you can charge at home, no problem. Nevertheless, for all these other use cases we're talking about - trucks for logistics and buses for transporting people - and I understand we're not talking planes, right? We
- the planes are planes, yeah, so the planes are not banned. So for the other two use cases, there is not necessarily a great solution, or a solution at all yet, for all these problems. When it comes to these directives, it always sounds very strict in the beginning, but then you sort of have to find your way on making - or trying to get everyone to adapt to it, or trying to make it work for
everyone. I know that you can still get, for example, special permissions - let's call it special permissions - to import vehicles when you have a very good reason. For example, you need it for actually delivering things between cities and you can really prove you cannot do your job, you cannot do deliveries with an electric truck. So there is that - there are still special permissions - but the other thing is also that right now
you still have a lot of used vehicles that are running. People are just continuing to use them and paying a lot for fuel, because the fuel prices are extremely high. Are the fuel prices comparable to Germany? If you compare the fuel price, I think we are at around 120 birr. Currently €1 is 160 birr. But you have to look at the inflation - we are at, I think, I checked
today, we are at around 14% inflation in the country. Just to illustrate it a little bit: when I lived there in 2019, 2020, 2021, the fuel price was at 20 birr per litre. Now we are at 120. And that's a massive increase, and also the inflation of the currency - we were at €1 to 50 birr and now we are at €1 to 160. And of course the salaries of
people don't increase that much. Average people - the majority of the country - make around 3,000, 4,500, 5,000 birr a month. When you have a degree, maybe 7,000–8,000, something like that. I would say that's a middle-class salary. Now imagine you have to pay 120 birr of that monthly salary for 1 litre of fuel - that's insanely high. And why aren't there more charge points? The telecom company could create more charging stations. Do you know what's holding back the investment or the number of charge points?
I guess, since the ban came so suddenly, it's because the investments don't come in super quickly, and you also don't really have a great infrastructure of investors who would be interested in it - but those are just my assumptions. I know that Ethiopia is
in a transformation, or trying to transform, quite a lot of sectors. I guess this is just one sector where they need to get more financing, and where they might also have discussions on whether they can give it to private companies, because Ethio Telecom is a publicly owned enterprise controlled by the government. That might also be an issue. And grid stability - you said it has improved since you arrived in
the country? How can we imagine the improvements, and where is it now - especially considering the risk of not having your vehicle charged if the power grid is not stable? So the main thing of course was: how do we get this big chunk of electricity that is produced at the dam - which is, by the way, very close to the border of Sudan in the west of the country - and Addis Ababa, for
For example, it is pretty much in the middle. So there's quite a long stretch of, I don't know, 2,000 kilometers, maybe 1,500, something like that - but that's just a guess. Something like that between those two points, between Addis Ababa and the dam. And of course the dam is in the west, sorry - the dam is in the west, at the border of Sudan.
The border to Sudan, not far from South Sudan as well. And the question is how do you get the electricity from that point where it's not needed to all the points in the country where it is needed. Of course the big networks were strengthened, they replaced them. There was a lot of Chinese investment, but also some other international donors, and the international community gave some money to
just increase grid stability. But that doesn't apply to the local level, so the substations, for example, in Addis Ababa are not as strong yet. So while they have gotten a lot better when it comes to general electricity blackouts, if everyone is now going to charge their EVs, that's going to be a lot more difficult as well. So yes, that's a big challenge - not only producing the electricity but also getting it
to the point where it's needed. To my knowledge, Brazil, which also has a high share of hydropower, had huge issues related to droughts and therefore wanted to move more towards other forms of energy so that they don't rely only on hydropower, which - also considering global warming and droughts becoming more frequent - is not that smart as a single source of power. I'm not sure if there are any concerns that you have picked up in Ethiopia related
to that. When it comes to the dam, the specific project, not really. In that part of the country you don't really have a problem with droughts. They have a lot of water, much more than is needed, and that's why it was, I guess, also chosen for a project like that. The Blue Nile carries a lot of water that is all sourced in Ethiopia, and that region of Ethiopia - the west - is quite
green, quite lush. So water scarcity is not too much of a problem in that area. It is a problem in other areas of the country, but not where they produce the hydropower. Well, that's good news for them then. I guess so, yeah. Even though you can always talk about how sustainable hydropower at the end of the day is, because in Ethiopia - I looked at the satellite pictures of how big the lake at the dam has gotten
over the years - it's huge. It is the biggest hydropower dam in Africa, and it's larger than your home town. Definitely larger than Lake Constance. Definitely. Yeah, I'm not sure - Lake Constance, that would actually be a great comparison to look at. But I think it is larger than Lake Constance. Yeah, I think so.
Yeah. And what potential do you see? We talk in this podcast a lot about smart charging, V2G, bi-directional charging, and especially applications in countries where the energy system is a bit different - maybe there are spot markets, and there are more fluctuating, volatile renewables. What applications do you see? And maybe that also relates to the energy system as it's structured from a liberalization standpoint - you can elaborate on
that and how you see, or if you have even seen something already related to these topics, and what potential you see. I think I can just very quickly say that the potential is probably quite huge. But when it comes to all of the things that you just described, there is not much to be seen yet. Liberalization is not there. It's one national power company that
produces everything, runs the grids, and sells. Yeah, it's a state-owned monopoly. Exactly. I mean, they are slowly moving in other sectors - they're moving into liberalization, for example, in telecommunications. They have opened it up, so it's not only one company anymore; there are other companies investing. That might be a model in the future for electricity as well, but that's not a thing right now. Yeah. And just maybe for the listeners, one
idea: if we had solar power - as we were just discussing earlier - at people's homes or in companies' businesses, and combined that with battery storage or used electric vehicles as storage, eventually for times when the grid is not that stable, it opens up opportunities to save money as a whole for mobility as well. And these things still need to be developed, and it's not a straightforward start. No, absolutely, exactly.
The question is also whether there is actually a market there right now, because what I find interesting is that you talk about this import ban on ICE vehicles. But it's very, very difficult to compare the situation in Ethiopia to the situation in Europe or Germany. It's a very bold move, in my opinion, but of course when I look
At my experience of life in Addis, which was already - I've more or less only experienced the capital city - but for me it's very, very difficult to imagine how people outside of Addis would be interested in, would go into something that futuristic, I would say. Because the question is, is there a need for it? As an entrepreneur, I can't help but think, oh man, there must be a good opportunity as well for a private company to go into the
market now, given that there's such a strict regulation forcing everyone to move towards electric vehicles. And you said two charging stations in the whole country - it just cries out for a need for somebody to finance more charging stations, or maybe even a whole ecosystem around it, offering not only the charging stations but the whole energy management, electric vehicles, etc. But yeah, it would also be a very bold and
risky move to do that, I guess. Absolutely. Even though you might be surprised, Addis Ababa is quite a hub for startups and for entrepreneurship. Even though, yeah, there is a lot of regulation around it, I've experienced that there are a lot of people who have a lot of energy when it comes to this. So yeah, even though you've got the challenges in the country that
you have, the energy is definitely there. And as far as I know, foreign investors come in and they are looking for Ethiopian partners to do investments in the different infrastructures together. So that does happen, as much as is possible from a regulation point of view. Is that, by the way, something that GIZ does - these types of projects? That could also be an interesting development project
for GIZ? Yeah, for sure. In the long run, that could definitely be interesting. There are business support projects, and all sorts of different support projects. But of course, GIZ is always a partner to the government, and that's why it would always support the government strategy. That's the big thing for GIZ, I would say. Right, I think we covered a lot of ground.
We did. Thanks a lot for your time and for your insights, Johannes. I hope listeners could enjoy our podcast with a nice Arabica coffee coming from Ethiopia originally - and that was one of the nice legacies of this country - that definitely helped me as well to understand better and have more insights, and gave me a bit more impetus and energy to go and visit the country and maybe even start some business there. So thanks a lot,
and hopefully the country will manage this transition and be rewarded for this bold move. Definitely, yeah. Thanks a lot for inviting me. This is always great to talk about these topics, so very happy to be here. And if listeners want to connect with you, or if you have a last message for them, yeah, feel free to share. Yeah, I mean, we can of course always connect. I would be happy to continue the conversation on
these topics, because I find they're extremely important, but the conversation is not a big one about these topics. So it's always great to talk about it and to continue to do so. All right, have a great rest of the day, Johannes. Thanks a lot. The same to you. Thanks. And this was another episode of the Smart Charge by RiDERgy podcast. What a fascinating background from Johannes, who early on got fascinated about development economics and brings in interesting project experience in South
Africa, as well as a very international background, and then especially his deep knowledge about the country of Ethiopia. What a fascinating country, isn't it? I found especially the altitude differences - from -150 m to 5,000 m - quite fascinating, as well as the modes of transport and the planes, and how they move around given the altitude differences, and how they are moving to electric vehicles in such a bold move as the first country really trying to make an impact for their population that cannot
afford these high fuel prices. So with this abundance of renewables, it makes just total sense. Nevertheless, it's such a challenge to build charging infrastructure, to have a reliable grid, and having so few charging stations - like two big charging station spots in Addis Ababa, in the whole country - definitely opens up challenges and opportunities to make things better. Very curious to see how this develops over the years. And I hope you learned a ton about the country and the prospects
of e-mobility and smart charging, especially V2G, which will probably be part of the solution as things advance. I'm looking forward to you tuning in again in the next episode, and don't forget to share it with somebody who might find these types of topics interesting, and to give us a five-star rating. Bye.
节目笔记
Ethiopia became the world's first country to ban non-EV imports in 2024, and Johannes Huber, Energy Policy Advisor, was in the room when it happened. From development economics to practical energy projects in South Africa and Ethiopia, he explains how a leapfrog policy works when the grid is the constraint, why used EV imports are the real lever, and what the 2024 ban means for a market that runs on 20-year-old Toyota Land Cruisers. Claudio and Johannes trace the line from policy signal to depot charging reality. We cover: - Johannes’s background and the international perspective he brings to energy policy and smart charging. - Ethiopia’s extreme altitude range (–150 m to 5 000 m) and its impact on transport and aviation. - The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) – a 74 billion m³ reservoir with over 5 000 MW potential, more than double Ethiopia’s current output: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/3/ethiopias-pm-abiy-ahmed-says-mega-dam-gerd-on-the-nile-now-complete - The challenge of deploying reliable charging infrastructure in a country with only two major EV charging parks in Addis Ababa. - A closer look at one of those charging parks in action: https://www.tiktok.com/@micki_aweke2/video/749099208535341803 - The abundance of renewables in Ethiopia and why smart charging and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) will be crucial to making clean energy accessible and affordable. Tune in to learn how bold policy moves and technological innovation are paving the way for a more sustainable transport future in one of Africa’s fastest-growing markets.