Kenya’s bus fleets want to go electric, but manufacturers can’t meet demand

Alfred Njoka had driven diesel buses in Nairobi since 2011 until he switched to electric two years ago, becoming one of Kenya’s first e-bus drivers. His electric bus is more comfortable, economical, and popular with passengers.

“People love the vehicle, so I don’t stay long waiting for customers,” Njoka told Rest of World. 

Today, Njoka is one of about 40 electric bus drivers in Kenya. The groups that run the country’s public bus transport — savings and credit cooperatives, called SACCOs — are trying to increase the number of EV buses on the roads — but the supply has not kept up. Industry experts believe the lack of capital available to the few local startups making EV buses, such as BasiGo, and high tariffs on imports of electric buses are responsible for the supply shortage.

“EV startups can’t meet and probably won’t be able to meet demand for the next couple of years,” Tom Courtright, research director at Africa E-Mobility Alliance, an organization promoting electric mobility, told Rest of World. “It certainly doesn’t help that BasiGo is one of the only companies. There needs to be more companies operating in the sector.”

Kenya levies a 25% import duty on fully built EVs. “The current pace of BasiGo’s production, combined with government restrictions on direct EV importation, slows adoption significantly,”  Edwin Mukabana, managing director of Kenya Bus Services, the country’s largest bus operator, told Rest of World. The organization acquired its first 36-seater electric bus four months ago from BasiGo. The group quickly placed an order for 25 more, but so far BasiGo has only delivered two.

With few foreign-made buses entering the country, domestic EV bus companies must meet the current demand. The Kenyan government has removed duties on the import of bus parts to incentivize local assembly of EVs. The country’s treasury is discussing a proposal to completely ban the import of fully built vehicles.

There are only two local electric bus makers in Kenya: BasiGo and Roam. Roam predominantly makes EV bikes and only recently expanded into building buses. They’ve built four buses so far and sold two of them at full cost for 20–26 million Kenyan shillings (up to $200,000), Felix Eningsjö, a regional sales executive at Roam, told Rest of World.

BasiGo, launched in 2022, has sold 35 buses to 11 cooperatives in Nairobi. In April, it opened an assembling factory — the first in Kenya — in partnership with Kenya Vehicle Manufacturers, which is partly owned by the government. The company plans to assemble 1,000 vehicles in three years; so far it has assembled fewer than 10. 

BasiGo offers payment plans, lowering the barrier to entry for cooperatives that operate fleets numbering thousands. Operators pay between 1 million and 1.5 million Kenyan shillings (up to $11,600) up front, and then additional charging costs, Moses Nderitu, BasiGo’s managing director, told Rest of World. 

Currently, the company has pending orders from at least 35 cooperatives for at least 500 more e-buses.

“We have 35 buses in Nairobi right now, and by the end of the year, we expect to

have 49,” Nderitu said. “We do not expect to fulfill all 500 orders until late 2026. Even as we move into mass production, we aim to be building 20 buses per month by the second quarter.”

EV bus assembly is a new concept in Kenya and ramping up production will take time, according to Abel Boreto, investment director at Nairobi-based venture capital firm Novastar Ventures, and one of BasiGo’s investors. 

“BasiGo faced long delays in securing adequate debt and equity capital to finance the purchase of additional electric buses from China,” Boreto told Rest of World. 

Last month, BasiGo raised $41.5 million in funding from Africa50, British International Investment, the U.S. Development Finance Corporation, and others, bringing its total funding to $63.1 million. “The capital will be put towards BasiGo’s objective of delivering 1,000 electric buses in East Africa in the next 3 years, while also enabling the company to expand to new vehicle types and new markets,” Nderitu said.

Some of the cooperatives are getting impatient. They claim BasiGo’s delays are hurting their ambitions to go electric. Supermetro, a Nairobi-based cooperative, currently has about four EV buses and has ordered 25 more from BasiGo, chairperson Nelson Mwangi told Rest of World. He said his firm would have tried other options for sourcing EV buses if they were available. 

“You cannot tell a person who is hungry that you will feed them next year,” Mwangi said. “I’m confident that if we had competitors in the market, vehicles would be more affordable, and there would be more charging stations and points available.”

George Githinji, CEO and director at OMA Services, a Nairobi-based cooperative with eight EV buses on the road and 65 pending orders, believes BasiGo is the only option to electrify their fleet. 

“When a company has a monopoly, there is little choice but to work with them,” Githinji told Rest of World. “Right now, BasiGo is the only equipped and stable provider in the market.”

Each of the cooperatives agreed the Kenyan government should encourage mass adoption of EV buses. They complained that the government has not done more than pass tax cuts and electricity tariffs.

“In places like China and the EU, where EV buses have had the greatest uptake, they are being bought and run by governments with huge funding,” Courtright said. 

Other major EV bus projects in Africa are government-led. In Senegal, the Dakar bus rapid transit system has 120 EV buses transporting 300,000 passengers daily. The $675-million project was financed by the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, and the UN’s Green Climate Fund. The government of Côte d’Ivoire has started building a dedicated 20-kilometer road for its electric BRT fleet, co-financed by the World Bank and French Development Agency. Last year, the Lagos state government in Nigeria partnered with Chinese company Yutong to manufacture 12,000 e-buses in seven years. 

The Nairobi metropolitan area has more than 22,000 vehicles, of which only about 500 are EVs. According to Mukabana from Kenya Bus Services, without government backing, “most of us are simply experimenting with the new technology to see how it pans out.” 

Mukabana suggested the government allow some vehicles to be imported as completely built units, and license more manufacturers to assemble vehicles locally. “We can’t afford to wait indefinitely,” he said.