The first electric car charging station in Naivasha was unveiled at the end of June 2023. The station is owned by Electric Go.
The charging station is part of a plan by Electric Go to build 300 electric car charging stations across Kenya in the coming one year.
Most car and electric motorcycle charging stations are currently concentrated in Nairobi and the expansion outside the city is a great stride.
Kenya currently has about 1,500 electric cars and the government has set a target to get 200,000 of the climate friendly machines on the road by 2025. This would be an equivalent of slightly over 5% of all vehicles.
To achieve the objective, the government reduced excise duty on EV products. Electric Go CEO Eve Maina called for the Government to do the same to customs duty since local manufacturing is still nascent.
“Such ventures should be encouraged for a sustainable future as it promotes accessible charging solution and other hybrid solutions to encourage electric car adoption in the country,” United Nations (UN) Habitat Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Director Michal Mlynar.
UN Habitat Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Director Michal Mlynar who was present during the launch of the EV charging station said the current energy crisis in the country necessitated solutions not dependable on oil, fossils and Kenya is blessed in this regard as she has made progress in the renewable energy and reduced her dependence on fossil.
The director also urged National and County Governments to support initiatives geared towards cleaner energy use and adoption of electric vehicles, observing that the youth were at the centre of such changes.
Cost of charging an electric car in Kenya
The current tariffs set by the government for EV charging is KES 17 per kilowatt-hour during peak hours and KES 8 per kilowatt –hour during off-peak. This translates to KES 20 per kilometre.
Comparatively, a litre of petrol currently retails at way more than KES 180 in most towns across Kenya. It is therefore economic sensible to use electric cars at the moment.
A full electric car charge has a range of more than 390km.
While it takes a more time to recharge an electric car compared to refueling at the petrol station, recent reports indicated that Toyota was working on a battery technology that would see that time reduced from about 2 hours to under 10 minutes.
According to Mylnar, car producers will shift to producing hybrid or electric vehicles by 2050. Over 70% of emissions in urban centres today are caused by diesel vehicles.
