Kiira Motors’ Pearl to Cape Expedition delivers 820-bus order pipeline, recasting Africa’s electric mobility narrative

January 3, 2026 in Companies, Science and Technology, Trade & Industry, Transport by Editor

Kiira Motors has emerged from its Pearl to Cape Expedition with an 820-bus electric vehicle order pipeline, marking one of Africa’s most significant commercial validations of long-haul electric mobility. The 13,700-kilometre journey from Kampala to Cape Town and back delivered firm export contracts, dismantled range-anxiety concerns, and repositioned Uganda at the centre of the continent’s green transport transition.

Michael Wakabi

Uganda’s state-backed electric vehicle manufacturer, Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC), has closed its landmark Pearl to Cape Expedition with an order pipeline of 820 electric buses, a commercial breakthrough that places the company and Uganda — at the centre of Africa’s emerging green transport economy.

The orders, comprising 450 firm contracts and 370 additional units under advanced negotiation, were announced on December 29 during the expedition’s homecoming ceremony at Metroplex Mall, Naalya, marking the conclusion of a 38-day, 13,700-kilometre transcontinental journey from Kampala to Cape Town and back.

At the heart of the commercial success is a 450-bus order signed in Johannesburg for the Kayoola E-Coach 13M, bundled with fast-charging infrastructure. The deal establishes South Africa as Kiira Motors’ largest early export market, while negotiations for the remaining 370 units are ongoing across Eswatini and other Southern African markets, according to company officials.

For Paul Isaac Musasizi, Chief Executive Officer of Kiira Motors Corporation, the expedition marks a decisive inflection point — not only for the company, but for how Africa approaches transport, energy security and industrial sovereignty.

“The technology works,” Musasizi said at the close of the journey. “The task now is to build the ecosystem that allows this green transition to accelerate.”

Conceived as a multi-layered validation exercise — technical, commercial and diplomatic — the Pearl to Cape Expedition was designed to confront long-standing scepticism about the viability of electric mobility in African operating conditions.

By journey’s end, the Kayoola E-Coach 13M (2025 model) had traversed six countries — Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Eswatini and South Africa — charging at 42 different locations and completing the entire circuit with only one recorded safety incident, a tyre puncture caused by metallic debris in Botswana.

“We went to the Cape and came back without a single incident,” said Elias Bwambale, Expedition Commander and Head of Legal at Kiira Motors. “What returned with us was not just a bus, but a vision that travelled across the heart of Africa.”

Unlike controlled pilot projects or short-range urban demonstrations, the expedition deliberately subjected the bus to what Musasizi described as “worst-case African travel conditions” — extreme heat in the Kalahari, steep gradients through the Great Rift Valley, long distances between towns, and prolonged border delays.

Engineering endurance across the continent

At the centre of the mission was a vehicle engineered specifically for these realities. The 13-metre Kayoola E-Coach 13M, built for heavy payloads and intercity travel, completed nearly 14,000 kilometres under sustained operational stress.

According to expedition telemetry:

• 10,904 kWh of electricity was consumed
• Average energy efficiency stood at 0.79 kWh per kilometre
• Nearly 6,000 kilograms of CO₂ emissions were avoided compared to a diesel equivalent
• Fuel cost savings exceeded UGX 14.4 million

A defining moment came on December 2, when the bus completed the 431-kilometre Francistown–Gaborone leg on a single charge, achieving energy consumption as low as 0.70 kWh/km.

“This is the longest single segment recorded in the dataset,” Musasizi said in a technical briefing. “It demonstrates that with disciplined speed management and intelligent energy use, long-haul electric transport in Africa is not only possible — it is efficient.”

Beyond performance metrics, Musasizi framed the expedition as a strategic response to Africa’s structural dependence on imported fossil fuels.

“The impetus for the Pearl to Cape Expedition lies in the urgent need to decouple African economic growth from fossil fuel dependency,” he said.

Many non-oil-producing African countries, he noted, spend a disproportionate share of foreign exchange earnings on imported refined petroleum products. For landlocked countries such as Uganda and Zambia, transport fuel costs are further amplified by long overland supply chains from ports like Dar es Salaam and Mombasa.

“E-mobility offers a strategic exit from this volatility,” Musasizi argued. “By leveraging abundant hydroelectric potential in Uganda and Zambia, and solar resources in Botswana and South Africa, these countries can power transport networks using domestically generated energy — strengthening energy security and balance-of-payments positions.”

While the expedition generated extensive engineering data, its commercial intent was equally deliberate. Southern Africa represents one of the continent’s largest long-haul bus markets, historically dominated by diesel fleets.

It was in Johannesburg that Kiira Motors’ strategy crystallised into its largest deal to date — among the largest electric bus export orders ever secured by an African manufacturer.

“This was the strongest proof of concept we could have delivered,” said Catherine Muwumuza, Superintendent of Support Services at the Science, Technology and Innovation Secretariat in the Office of the President. “The Honourable minister, Dr Monica Musenero, set a target of 1,000 buses. We are now just 200 short.”

The expedition also surfaced second- and third-order insights into Africa’s transport and energy systems.

At congested border crossings such as Tunduma–Nakonde and Kazungula, diesel buses continued burning fuel while idling for hours. The electric coach, by contrast, consumed minimal energy while stationary — an operational advantage in trade corridors prone to delays.

Equally significant was the expedition’s reliance on industrial three-phase power, rather than purpose-built EV charging stations. This demonstrated that electric transport is viable even in regions with limited EV infrastructure, provided reliable grid access exists.

“What the expedition proved is that the barriers are not technological,” Musasizi said. “They are institutional and infrastructural — and therefore solvable.”

Toward a Kampala–Cape Town Green Belt

Kiira Motors officials increasingly frame the expedition as more than a vehicle test. Internally, it is viewed as a technocratic and geopolitical blueprint for what Musasizi terms a “Kampala–Cape Town Green Belt” — a transnational economic corridor anchored in renewable energy and digitised logistics.

Drawing on raw expedition data — including state-of-charge logs, timestamps and odometer readings — the company says its engineering choices, notably Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry and high-torque drivetrains, were validated under real-world continental conditions.

At the same time, the journey exposed gaps in grid reliability and cross-border coordination that must be addressed if Africa is to fully unlock the promise of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) through green logistics.

The expedition’s return to Kampala was marked by a ceremony attended by senior government officials. Works and Transport Minister Gen. Edward Katumba Wamala, representing the Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, described the journey as a national statement of capability.

“This journey has proved that collectively, we have what it takes to take our country to the next level,” he said.

With the expedition concluded, attention now turns to execution. Delivering the confirmed South African orders will test Kiira Motors’ capacity to scale production, deploy charging ecosystems, and sustain cross-border after-sales support.

For proponents of African industrialisation, the Pearl to Cape Expedition has shifted the narrative — moving electric mobility from aspiration to evidence, and increasingly, from demonstration to demand.