When Rwanda’s president said last August that he wanted all of the country’s motorbikes to be electric as soon as possible, Ampersand’s waiting list exploded. The country’s first electric motorbike company now has about 7,000 drivers in line for its vehicles. The problem is it can deliver just 40 bikes by the end of March. For Josh Whale, Ampersand’s CEO, the demand shows that Africa’s population isn’t content with second-hand trends from affluent countries. People are impatient for the most efficient technology.
“Countries here leapfrogged landlines and went straight to cell phones, and leapfrogged conventional finance to go straight to mobile money,” he said. “Now Africa’s growth is leapfrogging petrol to go to electric vehicles.”
The momentum on the continent is particularly strong in East Africa, the fastest-growing region, where the population is set to more than double by 2050 and big money is flowing into growing and stabilizing the electricity grid. Already, renewable energy accounts for almost 90% of the energy supply in some countries in the region, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Green technology adoption is growing in Kenya, where the government’s electricity producer has spent hundreds of millions of dollars drawing geothermal energy from the volcanic Rift Valley. That provides almost half of the country’s grid energy, which ARC Ride will use to charge its fleet of electric rickshaws and motorbikes. From January, its drivers will work with Sendy and Amitruck, two of the country’s largest delivery companies, as well as carry people. ARC Ride’s electric vehicles will be among the first to compete with Nairobi’s petrol-powered motorbike taxis, which number over 100,000. The company says it’s in talks with Bolt to help supply drivers for their ride-share and delivery services. Bolt declined to comment on the specifics of its plans.