will soon launch its next generation electric motorcycle, the Umeme 3000. Umeme is Swahili for electricity. Ecobodaa started operations in 2020 after founder Kimosop Chepkoit, who had earlier used his savings to start an ICE motorcycle leasing firm in Nairobi, became fascinated with electric motorcycles. He then started to ask around to get some insights on how the market would respond to electric bikes.
Once Ecobodaa had found a suitable electric motorcycle, a pilot program was launched in some parts of Nairobi to gain some feedback on the performance, as well as valuable insights from key stakeholders in the Kenyan motorcycle taxi industry popularly known as the boda boda industry. Ecobodaa CEO Kimosop Chepkoit says the pilot program showed that the company has been able to save riders 36% on daily fuel spend, over 75% on repairs, and 90% on servicing over a period of 3 months.
Valuable feedback from motorcycle riders has helped Ecobodaa upgrade its motorcycle to be better suited for the African use case, where motorcycles are primarily for commercial use, such as ferrying passengers and goods. This means overloading and long hours of usage. Most Asian-built electric motorcycles are not built for such intense usage; they are mostly for private use.
It’s really good to see local Kenyan companies such as Ecobodaa moving from pilots to commercial roll-outs. The Kenyan motorcycle taxi industry is a huge market that is currently running on millions of polluting fossil motorcycles. A study by the Energy Regulatory Commission on the Global Fuel Economy Initiative Study in Kenya , cites that emissions from motorcycles of less than 150 cc are about 46.5 g/km of CO2. The average annual distance covered by motorcycles is around 17,800 km.