Tides of Transition

Abstract The geography of vehicle exports to Africa is shifting from established North–South circuits of second-hand automobiles to emerging East–South exchanges led by China and India. Unsettling long-standing geopolitical hierarchies, the growing influx of used cars and electric two- and three-wheelers from the Global East is reshaping mobility cultures and infrastructures, regimes of value, and livelihood across the continent. However, this influx risks exacerbating existing, or creating new socio-environmental burdens, related to road traffic crashes, toxic end-of-life vehicles, and electric vehicle batteries. These issues illuminate the tensions of low-carbon transitions globally, extending both access to affordable green mobility technologies and the associated human-environmental hazards. Africa's position within these evolving automotive geographies reveals the spatial and moral asymmetries of global mobility transitions.