Original Story Published by: Staff Writer for Reuters
Photo Source: ©The Africa Report
To fight against the high cost of fuel and pollution, a new initiative known as e-moto, is testing the use of electric motorbikes in Rwanda's capital Kigali.
Developed by Ampersand, a U.S - Rwandan electric vehicle company, the project aims to provide a low cost and environmentally friendly mode of transport, especially for motorcycle taxis riders.
Many Rwandans have increasingly been using motorbikes as taxis to avoid relatively expensive fares and traffic congestion.
In East Africa alone, more than 3 million people earn their livelihood as motorcycles drivers.
According the Ampersand founder and CEO Josh Whale, the e-moto will be more efficient and economical for the drivers.
"With a motorcycle that is more powerful, it's better at acceleration, it's better at climbing hills, has a top speed that's the same of better than the motorcycles here and it costs less to produce, we can sell it for less, but especially less cheaper to power. So drivers at the moment here in Kigali spend about 2,000 dollars a year on fuel, oil changes, they don't have to do any oil changes with us and the cost of energy with us is going to be something like 900 dollars a year so for a moto, that's a 1100 dollars a year savings, a huge amount of money," he said.
There are around 25,000 registered motorcycle taxi operators, according to Rwanda's taxi moto federation.
In Kigali, taxi motos are notorious for being involved in many road accidents. But Ampersand claims the electric motorcycle can help reduce the rate of accidents.
To read the full article, visit The Africa Report.
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