KENYA: 16 stations in Nairobi to swap batteries for Ampersand e-motorbikes

After Hurlingham, Dagoretti and Mountain View in 2022, 16 other districts of Nairobi in Kenya will be equipped with replacement stations for the batteries of electric motorbikes from the start-up Ampersand.

In Kenya, mobility start-up Ampersand will be installing replacement stations at 16 TotalEnergies service stations to power the batteries of its electric motorbike riders. The initiative, which is part of the French oil group’s eco-responsible approach, should speed up the reduction of CO₂ emissions in Nairobi’s road traffic.

“In the short term, we will transform the e-motorcycle recharging landscape by strategically placing battery exchange stations within 5 to 10 km of all operational areas in the Kenyan capital. This will redefine convenience and efficiency for over 2,000 customers with the same reliability, customer experience and convenience as a petrol station, while preserving jobs for the thousands of petrol station employees across Kenya,” says the company headed by Josh Wale.

One of these stations was recently inaugurated in the upmarket Westlands district in the presence of Jean Philippe Torres, TotalEnergies’ country manager. The partnership comes as Ampersand prepares to roll out 600,000 electric motorbikes in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The start-up was founded in 2016 with the mission of enabling the energy transition in the transport sector in East Africa by 2030.

This requires major technical and financial investment. This is why Ampersand is turning to various funding platforms, starting with the American Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF), which has raised up to 3.5 million dollars for it in 2021. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the German Agency for International Development Cooperation (GIZ) are also contributing their expertise in green mobility.