Kenya to Become EV Hub of Africa

With Kenya becoming more involved in the technology world, e-mobility startups are on the rise as they seem to put electric vehicles on Kenyan roads, which could possibly transform the country into a hub for EVs.

Public transportation, taxis, and motorcycles are being capitalized on as companies are set to make Kenya a leader in renewable energy in Africa, with the government pushing for electric vehicles through friendly policies and jokaroom.net users are excited with this development.

Co-founder and CEO of Nairobi-based e-mobility startup BasiGo, Jit Bhattacharya said to the media: “Over 70% of our electricity come from renewable energy today. Not at some point in the future. Today. That means actually in this global push to electrify transit everywhere in the world, it would actually have greater impact for us to do it here,”

BasiGo is not alone as Kiri, Nopea Ride, EVM Africa, Opibus, Agilitee Africa, Caetano are also among the companies with the similar intention of transforming Kenya into e-mobility.

Kenya’s electricity mostly comes from renewable energy as 92.3% of electricity generated locally came from hydro, thermal and wind in 2020, which is said to be three times the amount of renewable energy being generated globally.

As of February, only 350 of Kenya’s 2.2 million cars are electric vehicles and the country intends to increase this number, which could take a while considering the huge gap.

Back in 2019, the country slowed down the import of fully electric vehicles. But not after that, Kenya develop a strategy that will increase the rate of EVs which will reduce the amount being spent on importing petroleum. One of these strategies includes having public buildings and new estates incorporating charging stations for the EVs. This will see charging points spread across the whole nation and a reduction of taxes will be made for electric cars.

Nopea Ride has adopted the use of electric vehicles for its taxi service in Kenya since 2018. While BasiGo plans to start using electric buses and offer charging and maintenance services for electric bus operators in the East African country. BasiGo also plans to make the buses affordable for the operators and users of real money casino usa through a financial strategy.

Currently, BasiGo is running a performance and reliability test for their two 25-seat electric buses in Nairobi. The vehicles are set to launch with bus operators in Nairobi next month after creating a charging and servicing depot for electric buses in the city.

Another example is the Swedish-Kenyan Company, Opibus which develops electric motorcycles, public transport, commercial vehicles, and charging and energy solutions, has been able to deploy 160 motorcycles and 10 cars.

In January, the company introduced its first all-electric bus in Kenya which was also the first electric bus that was designed in Africa.

Opibus was able to raise $7.5 million in a funding round for mass production in 2022. It also announced its partnership with Uber in a bid to supply 3,000 electric motorcycles in Africa.

Opibus’ chief marketing officer, Albin Wilson talked about his vision of making Kenya the EV hub of Africa. He said: “There’s so much more you can do with this. It’s a whole new industry. If Kenya can become the EV hub of Africa, that would be immense.”