Innoson Calls for EV Component Tariff Relief as Nigeria's Import Incentives Favor Finished Vehicles

Nigeria's largest indigenous automaker says government duty waivers on imported electric vehicles undercut local assembly, urging tariff alignment during MAN clean-energy visit.

Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing has asked Nigeria's federal government to review import duties on electric vehicle components, warning that the current tariff structure could disadvantage domestic production. The appeal came during a visit by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria's south-east branch to Innoson's facility as part of MAN's Industrial Energy Adoption Programme. Innoson chairman Innocent Chukwuma told the delegation that while the government has eliminated duties on imported finished electric vehicles, components required for local assembly still attract import charges. MAN branch chairman Adaora Chukwudozie called for stronger engagement between government and manufacturers, saying Nigeria's shift to electric mobility should support local production rather than increase reliance on imports. The visit included representatives from Norwegian renewable-energy financier Empower New Energy and local EPC partner Paras Energy. Nigeria exempted electric vehicles from import duty and VAT earlier this year under its Presidential Gas for Growth Initiative, and has approved tax waivers for nearly 4,000 EVs in the first half of 2026. The broader clean-energy push by MAN comes as manufacturers face energy costs that now consume over 45 percent of overhead, according to the association's research arm.

How could this affect you

Traced by who's actually in the path of this — not everyone is.

Direct

If you assemble EVs or supply components in Nigeria

Zero-duty finished EV imports undercut local assembly margins when your imported components still carry tariffs, compressing your price competitiveness against turnkey imports.

Direct

If you import finished EVs into Nigeria

Federal duty exemptions and VAT waivers reduce your landed cost, widening your advantage over local assemblers who still pay component duties.

Possible

If you're planning EV assembly investment in West Africa

A policy shift toward component duty relief could tilt the regional manufacturing calculus back toward Nigerian assembly hubs, but only if federal alignment materializes.

Off-Lens

Who is covering this — and who is not.

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Chanakya's Move

Whose move this was, what they're betting on, what could counter it.

This is Innoson leveraging institutional visibility—a delegation visit from MAN's clean-energy programme, backed by Norwegian finance and local power developers—to frame a tariff complaint as industrial policy coherence. The bet: that framing component duties as contradicting Nigeria's own EV adoption goals creates political pressure for exemption parity. The vulnerability is timing. Nigeria has already issued nearly 4,000 EV duty waivers this year and slashed passenger vehicle tariffs in July; reopening the tariff schedule for components risks looking like special pleading unless Innoson can align other local assemblers and frame it as broad local-content policy. The counter-move would be for import lobbies to argue that component duty relief simply subsidizes foreign part suppliers upstream, with no guarantee of Nigerian value-add, and that the current structure at least captures revenue from one end of the supply chain.