Electric cars gaining traction in Kenya

Ekorent Africa, the firm behind electric taxi service Nopia Ride that is shaping conversation in Nairobi, now says it is targeting a fleet of 150 cars by end of next year.

Nopia, a fully electric taxi hailing company from Finland, is seeking to set up in Kenya.

According to Ekorent founder and CEO, Juha Suojanen, the firm seeks to benefit the driver first, then the customers will follow.

“One of the main components of operations in the taxi business is fuel, take that away and the driver is making more money at the end of the day,” said Suojanen.

Speaking to Citizen Digital, Philip Mwangi, a Nopia Driver, intimated that he makes more money on Nopia compared to the other taxi hailing apps simply because he doesn’t fuel.

25% of the operational cost of online taxis goes towards fueling the vehicles.

According to Victor Chege, a taxi driver with one of the taxi hailing apps states that he uses more than Ksh.2000 on a daily basis to conduct his business.

“Without fuel we cannot conduct our business and that why it affects our bottom lines. If I make Ksh. 8000 a day, I will have to spend at least Ksh.2000 on fuel,” said Chege.

“The electric element makes our trips way cheaper compared to other apps and we take 25% of what the driver makes,” said Suojanen.

Juha says the choice of Nairobi city as the pilot base for Ekorent in Sub-Saharan Africa was simple,the country is the home of mobile money services which Nopia ride hopes to exploit.

Further, Kenyans are already conversant with taxi-hailing apps and every other day digital taxi businesses are propping up, and what’s more Nairobi and Helsinki are literally one and the same place, time-wise.