Following a bit of back and forth debate, the EA organiser looked disappointed and said “I’m confused.”, then turned his back on my friend.
I don’t like analogizing EA to a religious movement, but I think such an analogy is appropriate in this instance. If I went to a Christian gathering, accompanying a devout friend, and someone came up to me and asked, “Oh, I haven’t seen you before, which church do you attend?” I would reply, “Oh, I’m not Christian.” Then if, after a bit of discussion, that person chose to turn and walk away, I wouldn’t be offended. In fact, them turning and walking away is one of the better outcomes. Far better than them attempting to continue proselytize at me for the rest of the event.
In this case, the organizer encountered a person who was clearly not bought into EA, ascertained that they were not bought into EA after a short discussion, and then chose to walk away. While that’s not the friendliest response, it’s hardly the worst thing in the world.
In practice, what happens is that the locals just import cars illegally, leading to a huge black market for cars and auto repair. An auto industry is very hard to set up, but cars are still so vastly superior to other forms of transportation that people will literally drive cars across hundreds of miles of desert, then fix them up locally in order to resell them at a profit.