The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

After reading some of the comments, the next questions, why are automakers not building plants in Africa? Cheap labor force, cheap land, probably needs education and training. China is courting Africa, is the US?

France has dibs on Africa. Plus, the American manufacturing industry was our gift to and remains our primary bargaining chip with CCP. We wouldn't dare give it to anyone else.

Government stability? Supply chain? Cost of delivery? Just the first few guesses off the top of my head.

> probably needs education and training

That's not helping!

Firstly, Africa is a continent, not a sovereign nation or a monolithic politico-economic bloc. Cars aren't manufactured in every country in Asia, but primarily East and Southeast Asia. Asia proper extends from Anatolia to the Bering Strait, where many countries in between have no automobile industry whether domestic or foreign.

Secondly, there are plenty of reasons to avoid doing business in the many African countries, not the least of which are political instability, low literacy rates of the native populations, unfavorable and inconsistent economic policies (tariffs, board membership requirements, etc.), as well as inefficient and corrupt bureaucracies. That last one can create legal issues for you if you run a business incorporated in the US.

Of all the places in the world to build factories, you choose Africa? Not India, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia? Nothing personal against Africa but there are just a lot of options that aren't china with better industrial policy and want to build stuff to export.

US automarket is not a free market is why. Protective tariffs and other taxes or else we’d already be driving something hammered out of bangladesh as of decades ago.

Tell Mali and Niger that

Recent Japanese and Chinese automotive plants have gone up in the more stable countries on the continent such as Ghana, Egypt, and Kenya, but I assume this production will all be for local consumption.

In South Africa as far as I know we are already building cars for export markets.

This being

- VW - Mercedes Benz - Ford - BMW

(I think there may be a couple more).

Point being is that there are already some plants in "Africa".