Africa’s Electric Mobility Opportunity Will be Built Beyond the Vehicle

September 16, 2026 in Infrastructure, Letters, Opinion, Transport by Editor

In a move also intended to boost sales of the company’s own TankVolt e-bikes, first introduced to Uganda in 2023, Transsion plans to offer the battery-as-a-service facility by the end of June or early July.

Africa’s electric mobility future depends on charging infrastructure, reliable power and investment models that extend beyond vehicle manufacturing.

 

By Nikhath Zigmund

Africa’s electric mobility market is emerging where the economics are most compelling. Commercial motorcycles, three-wheelers, buses, delivery fleets and logistics vehicles travel frequently, follow relatively predictable routes and consume significant amounts of fuel.

For these operators, the lifetime cost of a vehicle matters more than its purchase price alone. We are already seeing this shift. Sales of electric two-wheelers in Africa reached approximately 70,000 in 2025, more than 80 times the level recorded at the beginning of the decade. The number remains modest within Africa’s wider transport market, but the trajectory points to a sector moving from isolated pilots towards commercial adoption.

The economics supporting that growth continue to improve. Average battery prices declined by 8pc in 2025, following a 20pc reduction in 2024. Electric vehicles can already offer a lower lifetime cost of ownership in many applications because of reduced fuel and maintenance costs, even where their initial purchase price remains higher.

These savings are particularly relevant for vehicles used to generate income. A motorcycle completing deliveries throughout the day or a bus operating a fixed route can recover a higher upfront cost more quickly than a vehicle that spends most of its time parked. This helps explain why commercial fleets and two-wheelers are becoming important entry points for electric mobility across East Africa.

The vehicle is only one part of the opportunity. Every electric mobility platform depends on charging points, grid connections, battery systems, depots, maintenance networks, digital payment systems and reliable electricity supply. These are the systems that determine whether a fleet can operate consistently and whether the business behind it can scale.

From an infrastructure investor’s perspective, this distinction is important. Vehicle manufacturing can expose investors to changing consumer preferences, competing technologies and individual product risk. Infrastructure serving several operators can offer a different proposition. The opportunity lies in hard assets that support the wider market, generate recurring revenue and can be replicated across cities or countries.

Charging networks, battery-swapping stations and electrified fleet depots become more investable when they are supported by contracted usage, predictable volumes and credible counterparties. Rather than attempting to select the motorcycle or vehicle manufacturer that will eventually dominate, investors can back the infrastructure that different manufacturers and fleet operators will need.

Kenya provides an early indication of how mobility demand can begin to translate into infrastructure revenue. Electricity consumed by electric vehicle charging increased by 188pc in 2025 to 8.43 GWh. Kenya’s dedicated e-mobility tariff charges KSh16 per kWh during peak periods and KSh8 during off-peak hours, creating a financial incentive to charge vehicles when demand on the electricity system is lower.

This connection between mobility and power will become increasingly important. Well-managed charging can create additional demand during periods when generation is underused. It can improve the utilisation of existing power infrastructure and create a new customer base for utilities.

The opposite is also possible. Concentrated charging demand can place pressure on local distribution networks if connections, substations and generation capacity are not expanded in time. Grid planning therefore needs to incorporate the likely growth of electric fleets before constraints emerge.

There is also room for business models that combine charging infrastructure with dedicated renewable generation and battery storage. Solar generation located alongside a bus depot, logistics hub or battery-swapping network can reduce pressure on the grid while improving the reliability and cost of charging.

Africa’s electric mobility opportunity will not follow a single model. Countries with established automotive manufacturing sectors can use existing industrial capability to produce electric vehicles and components. South Africa’s new energy vehicle investment allowance, which took effect in March 2026, provides a 150pc first-year tax deduction for qualifying investment in electric and hydrogen vehicle production assets.

Morocco is following a broader battery value-chain strategy. The country has attracted investment into cathode and anode production and has signed an agreement for a battery gigafactory with an initial planned capacity of 20 GWh. These investments build on an existing automotive manufacturing base and position the country to capture more value from the transition to electric transport.

Markets with large motorcycle and informal transport sectors may follow another path. Their opportunity may lie in local vehicle assembly, battery swapping, fleet leasing and charging networks designed for high-utilisation commercial vehicles.

Not every country needs to manufacture battery cells or complete vehicles. Competitive advantage may be found in components, assembly, maintenance, charging operations, software, fleet management or recycling. The objective should be to identify where each market can build durable capability rather than attempting to replicate the entire value chain.

The central financing challenge is timing. Electric mobility businesses frequently sit between venture capital and conventional infrastructure investment. They require more capital than many early-stage investors can provide, but they may not yet have the operating history, contracted revenue or scale required by traditional infrastructure funds.

Investment in African electric mobility reached almost USD70m in 2023, approximately eight times the level recorded in 2021. Yet the wider clean energy market continues to face a shortage of early-stage equity and project-development capital.

This is where blended finance and specialised transition capital can play a meaningful role. Early investors can support the first depots, charging networks and operating platforms while business models are refined. Concessional capital can absorb specific early-stage risks and help mobilise commercial investment without replacing the need for sound underlying economics.
The aim should be to create businesses that can eventually attract larger pools of institutional capital. Once utilisation is proven, contracts are established and cash flows become predictable, these platforms can move from experimentation to infrastructure scale.

Policy will determine how quickly this happens. Investors need consistent rules governing vehicle imports, charging standards, electricity tariffs, local assembly and grid connections. Incentives can help an emerging sector establish itself, but their greatest value lies in providing sufficient certainty for businesses to invest and build. They do not need to remain permanent. They need to be credible.

Electric mobility offers Africa an opportunity to build more than a market for imported vehicles. It can support new electricity demand, stronger utility economics, local industrial capability and infrastructure platforms designed around the way people and goods move across the continent. The vehicle will remain the most visible part of the transition. The infrastructure around it will determine whether the opportunity delivers.

Nikhath Zigmund is a Senior Investment Advisor to AIIM’s Africa Transition Acceleration Fund, with over 18 years of African infrastructure investment experience. She has led major renewable energy projects in Uganda and Kenya, including hydropower and the 100MW Kipeto wind project. She previously headed Energy for Africa at Fortescue, focusing on green hydrogen. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.