The Frontier Market of EV growth — far behind now, but moving rapidly!
We spent some time scoping out Kenya’s EV market over the summer, offers a great picture of the early shoots of local innovation in new EV markets!
Like most growing cities in Africa & Asia, Nairobi (Eastern and Central Africa’s regional hub) is a city with a rapidly growing middle class whose purchases of personal vehicles has grown rapidly over the last decade.
On the downside though, this economic growth indicator has also meant that roads have become further clogged by traffic that is increasingly becoming a health and climate concern for many. The harmful emissions from the millions of petrol/diesel vehicles that shuttle up and down Nairobi’s and other developing cities’ roads can no longer be swept under the carpet in the age of ER that we live in.
To put this into perspective, Kenya currently has about 2.2 million vehicles on the road, 99% of which have petrol or diesel engines. And according to The Nation, a Kenyan news agency, vehicles on Kenyan roads on average have emissions of 180 gCO2/km per vehicle vs UN requirements of 158 gCO2/km.
This is one of the key reasons EVs are starting to grab the attention of more climate conscious car buyers in the market, particularly as EV purchase costs drop globally and as more buyers become more aware ofthe huge savings versus fuel and running costs of conventional ICE cars.
A few EV focused companies are already up and running in the market and have started introducing some innovative ways of utilising EVs for specific local needs. Uber has been in this market for years but a local startup is taking a different approach. Nopia Ride, has set up a ride hailing app platform that offers commuters, shoppers and mall goers in mainly affluent parts of the city with a growing fleet of Nissan Leaf taxis. They’ve also installed a number of rapid chargers across several malls for their fleet and the small contingent of EV pioneers in the country — there’s not more than 200 pure EVs in Nairobi.
Opibus is another group that’s set up a work shop in an industrial part of the city — providing EV conversion services to the minibus passenger transport and safari tour sectors. And several other groups like Drive Electric Kenya, are forming advocacy groups to support the government in creating incentives for EV’s mass adoption and the growth of charging infrastructure investment.
The challenges are particularly huge here, particularly with manufacturers with a strong presence in the market like Nissan, not offering EV sales and not willing to provide guarantees on EVs yet. This will sadly continue to curtail the potential and ability for commercial fleet purchasers to seriously consider switching to fully electric fleets — a significant factor as they form over 80% of new car sales in Kenya.
However, from the experience we have had in other markets in the UK and across Europe, the ingredients are there for some exciting innovation and growth in the development in the EV space in Kenya and other frontier markets. We certainly look forward to continuing to keeping a close eye and getting involved in developments there!
