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Kenya’s electric motorcycle journey is a beautiful story characterized by tremendous innovation and sheer determination by a group of locally based companies working to address the real pain points of traditional ICE motorcycle users. This has resulted in the tens of companies that are now active in the Kenyan electric motorcycle sector. These companies are working hard to curate solutions that will be robust enough to handle the local use cases, especially the rigorous activities typically prevalent in the motorcycle taxi industry. Most of the players in Kenya have focused on this motorcycle …
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Kenya’s electric motorcycle journey is a beautiful story characterized by tremendous innovation and sheer determination by a group of locally based companies working to address the real pain points of traditional ICE motorcycle users. This has resulted in the tens of companies that are now active in the Kenyan electric motorcycle sector. These companies are working hard to curate solutions that will be robust enough to handle the local use cases, especially the rigorous activities typically prevalent in the motorcycle taxi industry. Most of the players in Kenya have focused on this motorcycle taxi sector, which is understandable because there are over 2.5 million ICE motorcycles in the country, mostly used for motorcycle taxi (boda boda) applications.
The other benefit of being on the ground and developing locally driven solutions to address local problems is that it also provides the opportunity to look at things from a holistic point of view. This often presents another perspective, unlocking more opportunities. This is exactly what Waya Electric did when it entered the Kenyan motorcycle sector as a relatively late entry compared to other players. As a relatively late entrant into a rapidly growing and generally well capitalised market, Waya started its operations with extensive quantitative and qualitative research and found that there were limited performance-oriented products on the market. Their research showed that most of the scale-up products were targeting the mass-market, lower-end income generation sectors, where price sensitivity has typically been one of the key determining factors behind product focus.
Waya Electric then opted to focus on complementing these efforts. Through extensive customer feedback, the team at Waya saw that heavy-duty, rural, and certain B2B contexts had slightly different requirements in terms of power delivery and range. In general, most electric motorcycle innovation globally is designed around urban commuting, clean roads, and predictable use cases. In a number of African markets, the realities are different — long distances, heat, steep terrain, heavy loads, and roads that constantly test the limits of any machine. That’s why from the beginning, Waya Electric has designed its electric motorcycles with these conditions in mind.
“Our engineering philosophy starts from the ground up: build for the toughest environments first, and let everything else follow. That approach is why our torque delivery, battery architecture and frame design are all tuned for the rough, rural and off-grid conditions that define mobility across much of the continent,” says Heiko Rehm, CTO of Waya Electric.
Besides B2B delivery applications such as last-mile LPG delivery, and other applications required by urban fleet management companies, Waya Electric found another key use case for rural and off-road applications in nature conservation areas. This has resulted in their motorcycles being used in one of Kenya’s largest conservancies, the Tsavo Conservation Area. The Tsavo Conservation Area (TCA) is a vast and ecologically significant region in Kenya, covering over 21,000 km² or approximately 4% of the country’s total land area. It comprises Tsavo East and Tsavo West—forming the heart of one of Africa’s largest and most important wildlife conservation areas. Cutting emissions from the transport sector in these areas is vital. Electric motorcycles also mean a massive reduction in noise pollution, which is a game changer in these parts, as it reduces disruption to wildlife.
“Seeing our bikes operating in the Tsavo Conservation Area reinforces that mission. When a motorcycle can consistently perform in a conservancy, over uneven ground, long patrols, remote locations and shifting terrain…it proves more than product reliability; it shows relevance. It shows that electric mobility can serve real community needs, support conservation teams and operate where infrastructure is limited,” says Heiko.
I really like this use case. The conditions in these conservation areas are similar to many areas in a number of countries on the African continent, presenting a key market segment that is ripe for electrification. Other key areas that come to mind that would need these kinds of electric motorcycles are around remote mining campuses, as well as agricultural extension services. Farmers also use motorcycles a lot in their daily operations. Having access to electric motorcycles capable of handling these daily operations will be a game changer. In most of these remote places, it is often the case that bringing petrol and diesel to these places is a logistical nightmare. Solar-powered charging of electric motorcycles will be a game changer. This is what “built for Africa” really means: engineering that reflects the continent’s realities, and technology that creates impact where it matters most!
Images from Waya Electric
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