In Kenya, there’s a quiet push for an electric car revolution

As a kid growing up in Kenya, Brian Arasa was always fascinated by cars — how they were built, where they were built.

“All my life, I’ve been watching documentaries, watching videos on vehicles being manufactured out there,” Arasa said. “But one question that always came into my mind was, are we actually able to do this here in Kenya?”

For decades, the answer to that question has simply been no. More than 90% of cars in Kenya are cheap, old internal combustion vehicles shipped in from other parts of the world, mostly Japan. 

Arasa never thought he’d live to see a Kenyan-made electric car hit the market. That is, until he got hired by TAD Motors a few months ago.

“It’s really, really amazing,” Arasa, now the company’s head of marketing, said. “It’s a dream that I didn’t think [would] come to us [so soon].”

TAD Motors is the brainchild and namesake of Tadesse Tessema, an Ethiopian-born engineer who has spent most of his career in the Netherlands and has a knack for first-ever business ventures. In 1997, he helped develop the Netherlands’ first hybrid bus. Then in 2005, he started the first car assembly plant in Ethiopia.

“A car is not rocket science,” Tessema said in an interview with The World. He spoke with palpable confidence as he described his latest effort to turn Kenya’s automobile culture on its head.

In the 1980s, the Kenyan government tried to launch its own locally made car brand called Nyayo, but it never went into production due to funding issues. Another homegrown company called Mobius Motors did successfully launch in the early aughts, but folded last year because it couldn’t compete with cheap imports.

Given the historical backdrop, Tessema said it’s been tough to convince authorities and investors that his company will somehow work. After all, TAD isn’t just trying to defy the odds on local manufacturing, it’s also trying to create a new market for EVs in a country where less than 1% of cars are electric.

“It’s very, very difficult, even if you have the best idea,” Tessema explained. “It’s very difficult to get financing for the project.”

As a result, TAD Motors is mostly funded by friends, family, old coworkers and Tessema himself. It’s a risk, for sure, but Tessema said he’s not concerned, because TAD has a silver bullet of sorts: Its electric cars — especially the compact cars — are remarkably cheap.

“We are coming with a price range of $10,000 dollars,” Tessema said. “There is no company, even in China, that can make these cars for this price.” With the way Kenya’s financing works, Tessema said that makes TAD’s cheapest model as affordable as a used import.

That model is a no frills vehicle with a small battery. Its driving range per charge is only about 150 miles, roughly half of what you’d get from a Tesla or BYD.

But, Tessema said, in East Africa, that’s all people really want and need. They see cars as a means of getting from point A to point B, he argued, and surveys conducted by TAD found that the average driver doesn’t need a big charging range.

“Normal people, they drive within a day, between 50 and 70 kilometers (31 to 43 miles),” Tessema said. “The main part of EV-making that makes it very expensive is the battery. So, [by] minimizing things which are not necessary for daily use, we have managed to reduce the price this much.”

Still, experts caution that a low-range could be problematic in a country like Kenya, where EV infrastructure doesn’t really exist.

“Charging stations are few and far between,” said Hamna Tariq, a research associate at the Energy for Growth Hub. Tariq co-authored a recent report on the challenges and opportunities for electric vehicle adoption across Africa.

“Kenya has this goal of having 10,000 charging stations by 2030,” Tariq said. “I can’t tell you that they’re going to meet that goal. What I can tell you, from our analysis, is that Kenya only had 40 public charging stations a year and a half ago. And building 10,000 more in the next few years seems a little bit improbable.”

On top of that, Kenya has major struggles with grid reliability and frequently experiences prolonged blackouts. But, Tariq said, that doesn’t mean you should count out startups like TAD. If more EVs are sold, it could inspire officials to improve infrastructure.

“I would say it’s exciting that the startup scene in Kenya is so vibrant,” she said. “I am excited to see how TAD motors actually implements this and how they start selling it.”

TAD, for its part, says it won’t be too long before that dream is realized. The company is currently developing an assembly plant near the capital Nairobi and plans to begin producing fleets of ultra-cheap EVs in March. And TAD hopes to assemble 3,000 cars annually once full capacity production begins.