Nigeria's auto plants have the muscle to build up to 500,000 vehicles a year, and domestic demand sits right around that same mark, between 400,000 and 450,000 units annually. On paper, that is a near-perfect match between supply potential and consumer appetite. In practice, the factories are running far below what they are built to do.
The National Automotive Design and Development Council, the NADDC, confirmed the gap, putting installed capacity at between 450,000 and 500,000 vehicles per year while actual output continues to fall well short of that ceiling. The council did not specify the current production figure, but the acknowledgment alone signals that something in the chain, whether funding, policy, raw materials, or market conditions, is not clicking.
For a country of over 200 million people with a growing middle class and an obvious hunger for personal transport, the disconnect is striking. The demand is real, the infrastructure exists, and yet the lots are not full. What closes that gap next is the question worth watching.
Originally published by AllAfrica.