As electric mobility continues taking shape in Kenya, new entrants appear focused on solving persistent challenges affecting pioneer brands. One of the biggest challenges at the moment is the availability of batteries and as well as the time it takes to swap them.
OgiRide will officially launch in Nairobi on March 1, 2026 with its major mission being making it easier and convenient for riders to get fully charged batteries wherever they are.
Riders have in recent times experienced long queues at recharge stations, where they end up getting half-charged batteries, or even failing to do a swap.
Half charged batteries mean the riders – mostly doing bodaboda and delivery business – are forced to make frequent returns to the long queues in a single day, wasting time and losing money in the process. In the end, they end up working for nothing, as they also have to service loans used to acquire the EVs on a daily basis.
The OgiRide mobile battery swapping system approach is to get fully recharged batteries to the rider instead of the rider worrying to find a swap station when power levels start going low.
Riders will use the OgiRide app to find the nearest swap or charging point, and if it is not available, they will request a battery delivery to their location. An OgiRide mobile swapper will then arrive with fully charged battery to make a swap in minutes for both two wheelers and three wheelers.
The mobile unit then returns to a solar-powered OgiRide recharging hub to charge the depleted battery.
While it sounds hopeful, there are still some bottlenecks that the EV company is likely to face with this approach once in operation.
First, they must have widely distributed recharge hubs to cover the extensive Nairobi metropolis. While OgiRide promises ‘no lost income’ for riders, it would be interesting to understand how they recover the cost of such an extensive network in a traffic jammed city, which will include delivery drivers for the batteries.
OgiRide also promises Sunbread mobile charging stations that are placed strategically in remote areas where e-mobility is slowly picking up, and some aren’t connected to the grid. This means sole reliance on solar energy for recharges in places where riders cover huge distances for a lower fee compared to the cities where client incomes are higher.
While trying to solve the unpredictable battery availability problem, it is not clear whether recharging using solar takes a shorter time compared to recharging using electricity.
