As the West surges toward electric cars, here's where the unwanted gas guzzlers go | CNN

Cotonou, Benin CNN  —  Standing on the stony ground in the bustling Fifa Park car lot, Rokeeb Yaya is haggling over the price of a dark red car. It is one of a couple hundred vehicles, parked in long lines stretching out across the vast lot – some shiny and new-looking, others dented and dusty. The car Yaya has his eye on, a 2008 US-built Ford Escape, is on sale for around $4,000. It’s relatively affordable – US cars are cheaper than most other brands in the lot – and he wants to upgrade from his motorbike to a car. He is not interested in the history of the vehicle, he said, only that he can afford it. But how this Ford ended up here – in one of the biggest car lots in the port city of Cotonou – helps tell a bigger story about how many of the West’s gas-guzzling cars are starting second lives in West Africa. The 14-year old Ford arrived in Benin from the United States last year, after being sold at an auto auction. Car records reviewed by CNN show it had three previous owners in Virginia and Maryland, and has logged over 252,000
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