As the West surges toward electric cars, the unwanted gas guzzlers go [to Benin]

Also Eastern Europe. The appetite for luxury or sports cars at steep discounts over sticker prices is insanely huge here as everyone wants to be seen in a luxury car they can't normally afford new, as a sign that you "made it".

Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Turkey and even further east towards Asia, and it helps that gas, insurance and maintenance tends to be much cheaper over there than in the EU while road-worthyness standards much more lax.

You often see trucks of all sizes with beds full of crashed luxury SUVs and trucks from Germany or even the US that are insurance write-offs and sold at auctions for rock bottom prices, shipped by boat to the Netherlands and then transported by trucks to Eastern Europe where they will get patched up for cheap and put back on the road.

It's a huge industry, flying mostly under the radar, full of self employed entrepreneurs, scams, bribes, shady deals, fake paperwork, and middle men who always "know a guy" for every possible problem there is. I dipped my toes a bit when I was also looking to buy a secondhand car from Germany, and as far as I hear, it can be quite lucrative.

The crazy thing is that the tax policies put in place by African governments push folks to buy old cars at crazy prices. A typical 8 year old second hand import car will cost more than the same brand new in the west. For example, a 2013 mazda Cx5 will cost ~20k (no warranty, caveat emptor..) while a new one in the west will cost ~30k usd. A new Cx5 in most African countries will set you back at least 60k usd. Why? Taxes! Buy the used car in Japan, get slapped with duties, add 16% vat and shipping cost. Typically, this doubles the purchase cost

Examples: https://www.mascardi.co/the-new-generation-mazda-cx5-xdl

https://crotonmotors.com/mazda/cx-5/

https://blog.sbtjapan.com/how-tos/how-to-import-vehicles-to-...

EV dedline dates will be pushed further into the future anyway (they're further enough already so that nobody will even remember them as a promise as the time approaches). "Gas guzzlers" are gonna stay with us for long after any currently bought new car is old enough to replace.