Kenya’s Electrifying Motos

If asked to name countries pushing electric vehicle design and manufacture, you might not have guessed Kenya. In Africa, motorcycles serve as individual transport, taxis, and light cargo delivery vehicles. A kaleidoscope of motorcycles—from different decades and many manufacturers—thread the city streets and flow on rural roads. This situation may enthrall motorcycle enthusiasts, but it comes with an emissions problem. In the last 5 or so years, a host of new companies have appeared, most of them in Kenya, to get Africa rolling electric.

One of these new motorcycle makers started with electric buses. Roam, formerly named “Opibus”, states their belief on their website that local engineers, who commute on Africa’s roads, know Africa’s automotive needs, and thus can design the best electric vehicles for the region. Roam has backed up this assertion by creating successful electric mass transit buses, electric matatus (a minibus used as a shared taxi), and now a rugged electric motorcycle. The Roam Air can charge from a wall socket and has a subframe designed to handle 220kg for cargo.

The Roam Air in motion. Image from Roam Electric’s press media page.

Notice that the Roam Air has two silver boxes on the subframe—those are batteries. Most motorcycles designed in Africa, for Africa, also feature one or two easily swappable batteries in a rugged case. This is visibly quite different from many electric motorcycles designed in America, Europe, and Asia, which tend to encase their batteries deeper in the frame or entirely under the bodywork. Quickly removed batteries are an advantage in a market where many would be buyers use their motorcycles for work—it makes recharging a matter of a couple of minutes at a growing network of battery swap stations, so riders can deliver cargo and passengers on time.

A boda boda driver ferrying cargo. Image credit: Wikimedia user RahimMngwaya (CC BY-SA 4.0)

One of the major commercial uses of motorcycles is as a taxi or light cargo carrier. Called “boda boda”, “boda”, “piki piki”, and other names depending on the region, these motorcycles are a popular way to navigate crowded cities and dirt roads in the countryside. Most of these motorcycles are gasoline or diesel powered.

For early adopters, the switch to electric has already been a welcome one. With gas prices rising, motorcycle taxis have struggled to make money for their operators. Boda boda drivers in Nairobi often spend around half of their day’s earnings refilling the fuel tank. Electric motorcycles are far cheaper to operate—and with few moving parts, cheaper to service and maintain.

One of the first electric motorcycles developed in Kenya, the Umeme 3000. “Umeme” means “electricity” in Swahili. Image credit: TrendHunter.

While boda boda are a small carbon dioxide source on the global scale, they make up a significant portion of emissions in Kenya and other African countries. Motorcycles tend to release less CO2 than a typical car or truck, but for decades motorcycle engines went unregulated in most countries. Africa’s fleet of motorcycles—numbering in the millions, many of them aging—release more of other greenhouse gases and hazardous smog chemicals, such as NOx and carbon monoxide. Converting to electric transportation is an important step for improving air quality in Africa’s cities as well as fighting climate change.

Roam isn’t the only African motorcycle company rising to supply an electric future. Kiri EV has already launched three models: a moped, a retro-styled motorcycle, and a modern replacement for the 150cc gas-powered motorcycle. Ecobodaa laid much of the early groundwork, interviewing hundreds of riders to find out what aspects of a motorcycle are most important, and now offer a lease-to-own program that lowers the price hurdle on electric motorcycles. ARC Ride makes the Corbett electric motorcycle and has already created a large network of battery swap stations to support riders.

An electric motorcycle made by Rwandan startup Ampersand. In June of last year, Ampersand sold their 1000th electric motorcycle. Image credit: Ampersand.

There are challenges still: charging and battery swap stations are mostly still confined to major cities, and some drivers remain uneasy about the short range on a single charge. But this surge of new manufacturers, designing and building electric motorcycles in Africa with as many local components as possible, is a breath of fresh air for transportation in Africa.