Why some Ghanaian drivers are ready for electric cars and others are not

A driver at Kaneshie said it plainly. If the car saves me fuel money, I will buy it. But if there is nowhere to charge it, what should I do?

That one sentence explains Ghana's electric vehicle story better than any policy document.

Our study was just published in Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy. We spoke to 800 commercial drivers and private car owners in Accra, Tema, Kumasi and Takoradi. The group included taxi drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers and owners of other commercial vehicles.

We did not measure smoke from exhaust pipes. We measured what drivers believe, what they intend to do, and how they see government support. We used Social Cognitive Theory to make sense of it.

The idea from Albert Bandura is simple. Behavior does not happen alone. It happens where three forces meet. The person is what you know and care about. In this case environmental awareness. Do you link fuel cost, air quality and health?

The environment is what surrounds you. Tax waivers, charging stations, import duty, the price of petrol. The behavior is what you decide to do. Will you consider an electric vehicle? Will you save energy where you can? When person and environment align, people act. When they do not, intention stays at the station. That is what we found.

Drivers who knew about tax incentives reported stronger intention to adopt electric vehicles and more sustainable energy habits. Drivers with higher environmental awareness showed the same pattern.

The most important finding was how awareness changed the effect of incentives. When awareness was high, tax incentives had a bigger effect on intention to adopt. Money plus meaning worked. A driver who understands why electric matters hears about a duty waiver and says I can try. But the same awareness made drivers more cautious about other claims.

When awareness was high, tax incentives had a weaker link to sustainable energy consumption and to perceived emissions. These drivers were realistic. They know Ghana still imports about 70 percent of its fuel, transport contributes about 45 percent of national carbon emissions according to the Energy Commission, and public charging is still scarce.

A waiver does not erase that. So they intend to adopt, but they do not automatically believe energy is now sustainable or emissions will disappear.

In the language of the theory, this is observational learning and self-efficacy. At union hubs like GPRTU and PROTOA, drivers learn from each other. One driver talks about saving on fuel, others listen. That is observational learning.

But self-efficacy, the quiet belief that I can make this work in my own yard, remains low because cost is high and chargers are few. Look outside Ghana and the same triangle explains why adoption took off elsewhere.

Globally, electric cars did not spread because they are beautiful. They spread because person and environment were aligned on purpose. In Norway, government removed VAT and import tax in the 1990s, allowed free tolls and bus lane access, and built chargers across the country. Awareness was already high.

Today more than 80 percent of new cars sold there are electric. In China, subsidies, number plate advantages in crowded cities, and a huge rollout of charging made brands like BYD cost competitive. When people saw neighbors driving electric, they learned by observing.

In the United States, a federal credit of 7,500 dollars plus state incentives moved middle class buyers. Once total cost of ownership reached parity, when drivers realized electricity is cheaper than petrol over five years, intention became purchase.

Africa is writing its own version, closer to our reality. Rwanda waived duties on electric motorcycles and partnered with companies like Ampersand for battery swap stations. Kigali's moto taxis went electric first because fuel cost is a daily pain. Kenya saw BasiGo deploy electric buses in Nairobi on a pay as you drive model that matches how drivers already pay for fuel.

Morocco now manufactures Renault electric models for export. South Africa is building local battery assembly despite power challenges. What links them is not wealth. It is sequencing. They started with high use commercial operators, taxis, buses and motorcycles, not private luxury cars. That is exactly the group we studied.

Why should a Ghanaian driver care. The benefits are not abstract. First is cost. A commercial driver spends a large share of daily sales on fuel. Electricity per kilometer is a third to half cheaper. Maintenance is lower. No oil changes.

Fewer moving parts. Second is health. Transport is a major source of air pollution in Accra and Kumasi. Cleaner air means fewer chest problems, especially for drivers who sit in traffic all day. Third is national stability. Cutting fuel import dependence saves foreign exchange and protects the cedi when global oil prices spike.

Fourth is work. Charging hubs, battery servicing and assembly of two and three wheelers create jobs that cannot be imported. None of this means tomorrow everyone will drive electric. Our study covered 800 unionized operators in four cities.

It cannot speak for a farmer in Navrongo. We measured intentions and beliefs, not verified purchases or measured emissions. Intending to buy does not yet reduce emissions. But intentions are where every transition begins. Ten years ago few Ghanaians intended to use mobile money. Today it is everywhere because what people knew, what surrounded them and what they could do finally aligned.

The policy lesson is simple. Publicize incentives where drivers already gather, in Twi, Ga, Ewe and Hausa, not only in gazettes. Link waivers to verified use in commercial fleets. Put visible charging and swap points at lorry stations, not only at malls in Airport City.

Pair every fiscal announcement with plain education on why it matters to pocket and lungs. The driver at Kaneshie is not against electric. He is waiting for the three corners to meet. When they do, he will shift gears.

The writer is a Senior Lecturer at University of Professional Studies, Marketing Department

Dr. Ebenezer Arthur Duncan

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