Electromobility company Spiro has added Uganda to its list of countries of operation. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni took part in the launch of the company's activities, which focus on marketing electric motorbikes and bicycles.
A new page is turning for Spiro. The mobility company is officially launching its activities in Uganda. In addition to Benin, Togo and Rwanda, where its investment in electric motorbikes and bicycles is soaring, it will now be operating in Uganda. This new location promises to be crucial, given that the President of the Republic himself travelled to the district of Kyankwanzi to give the go-ahead to the start-up’s managers and engineers.
“Electric motorbikes are better than our traditional bicycles, which require diesel, and this is favourable for our transition to environmentally-friendly modes of transport”, says Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Except that the machines manufactured by Spiro cost an average of $1,000, equivalent to an average annual salary in Uganda. The start-up therefore has a specific plan to make it easier for drivers to buy its electric two-wheelers.
It involves payment in instalments. And this formula is working, since “500 electric motorbikes are operational in Kampala and 150 of them have already been sold in a week”, says a delighted Rosa Malango, President of the Tumaini Africa Knowledge Centre (TAKC), which stimulates entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation in East Africa. Spiro plans to deploy at least 140,000 motorbikes with a range of 80 km and 35 battery exchange stations in Kampala by 2028.
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The benefits are not insignificant, both in terms of the fight against noise pollution and air pollution. Electric motorbikes are less noisy and emit no carbon dioxide (CO2), as they need no fuel to operate, unlike “bodas bodas” (the name given to motorbike taxis in the region), which rely on diesel and cost more ($1,480).
Benoit-Ivan Wansi
