NEWS POST: Uganda's Kiira Motors Unveils 'Africa's First Solar Bus'

Kiira Motors now hopes to attract partners to help mass produce the bus

A solar-powered bus described by its Ugandan makers as the first in Africa has been driven in public.

Kiira Motors' Kayoola prototype electric bus was shown off at a stadium in Uganda's capital, Kampala.

One of its two batteries can be charged by solar panels on the roof which increases the vehicle's 80km (50 mile) range.

The makers now hope to attract partners to help manufacture the bus for the mass market.

Kiira Motors' chief executive Paul Isaac Musasizi told BBC News that he had been "humbled" by the large and positive reaction to the test drive.

People have been excited by the idea that Uganda is able to produce the concept vehicle, or prototype, and Mr Musasizi said he wanted it to help the country "champion the automotive, engineering and manufacturing industries" in the region.

He also hopes that it will generate employment, predicting that by 2018, more than 7,000 people could be directly and indirectly employed in the making of the Kayoola.

But backing from international companies, which make vehicle parts, is essential for the project to take off.

The vision is that by 2039 the company will be able to manufacture all the parts and assemble the vehicle in Uganda.

The 35-seat bus is intended for urban areas rather than inter-city use because of the restrictions on how far it can travel.

If it is mass produced, each bus would cost up to US$58,000 (£40,000), which Mr Musasizi says is a a competitive price.

Kiira Motors grew out of a project at Uganda's Makerere University, which is now a shareholder in the company, and it has also benefitted from government funding.

Solar panels on the roof of the bus will top up the vehicle's battery

Ugandan Engineers Have Built A Solar-Powered Bus For Africa’s Roads

Ugandan engineers have built a solar-powered electric bus that they say is a first of its kind in East Africa and think it will revolutionize the automative market in the region. The Kayoola, as it’s called, is a 35-seater that can run for up to 80 kilometers on two power banks that can also be recharged by solar panels installed on the roof of the bus.

Paul Musasizi, chief executive officer of Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC), the state-funded company behind the vehicle, says with the potential for solar power in Uganda, it only made sense that engineers started to leverage the energy source for cars.

“The bus is purely electric and our idea is to test the strength of solar energy in enabling people to move,” he told a local newspaper.

The company built the prototype with funds from the Ugandan government. But KMC is hoping to attract investors to the project to start producing the buses for the mass market by 2018 at a retail price of US$58,000. Typically, 35-seater buses retail between US$35,000 to US$50,000.

“As we continue with developing concepts, we are also studying the market,” Doreen Orishaba, one of the engineers in the project, told Uganda’s Observer newspaper. “We want to see that we don’t make vehicles for stocking but for production on orders.”

The original Kiira.(Reuters/Edward Echwalu)

This is not KMC’s first foray into energy efficient car-making. Last year, the company introduced the Kiira Smack, a petrol-electric hybrid that it said would come into the market by 2018 as well for a US$20,000 price. But analysts were doubtful at the time of the project’s commercial viability. The price could prove prohibitive, they argued, in a market that sells an estimated 20,000 cars a year. Additionally, in a part of the world where electricity is not a widely available commodity, electric dependent cars could put undue pressure on national grids.

But by using solar as a power source for the Kayoola, KMC may have found a way to overcome that challenge in this instance.

“Uganda being one of the 13 countries positioned along the equator, gives us about eight hours of significant solar energy that can be harvested,” Musasizi says.
Originally published (STORY 1) in BBC and (STORY 2) in QUARTZ AFRICA