Trials of an E-Mobility Pioneer
By Geofrey Ndhogezi
The ability to move whenever and wherever I want always tops the list of my desires. It is freedom. Being adventurous, I always have the urge to explore new possibilities. This comes with the chance to test newly created things from devices and apps to procedures and recipes. Testing new things is fun, and nothing is better than testing tools that give me the freedom of mobility. With that combination in high gear, I got a chance to learn about electric mobility, thanks to Sarah Tabu — former sales executive of Zembo electric motorcycles. Sarah, whom I met for the first time at SafeBoda, introduced me to the green revolution and the battery swap business model, and I was immediately interested.
She asked me to join the revolution, and it was like preaching to the choir. So I joined the waiting list, and in only two months I became the second proud owner of Zembo Storm — the green, silent, environmentally friendly electric motorcycle in Uganda. A few other riders followed and in less than two years the population of the joyous motorcycle drivers grew to hundreds. The steady growth has encountered remarkable challenges throughout the past two years and has impacted the lives of all the people involved. However, as Ginni Rometty once said, growth and comfort do not coexist.
How do you grow electric motorcycles in Bajaj-loving Kampala?
Daniel Dreher and Etienne Saint-Sernin, the founders of Zembo electric motorcycles, deserve applause for structuring Uganda’s path to the future of mobility. In their business model they targeted boda riders as their serviceable available market, adopted the drive-to-own sales plan to catalyse adoption, and embarked on setting up charging stations to make the battery swap business model a reality. After three years on the ground, around 20 swapping stations are serving over two hundred motorcycles, and the founders are continuing their relentless plans for scaling in the massive Ugandan motorcycle market.
However, the task of overhauling the motorcycle market is not an easy one. For electric motorcycles to work as smoothly as conventional motorcycles, Zembo must provide maintenance and battery swapping service comparable to the garages and petrol stations which are already available everywhere for petrol motorcycles. Before this is available, though, it causes great discomfort for us, the riders, as we have to drive farther for swaps and for maintenance, and road breakdowns leave us waiting for mobile mechanics. The need for rapid expansion of swapping stations and mechanics calls for great leadership and has been struggling because the e-mobility staff, in addition to lack of adequate resources, are still learning about the dynamics of the targeted market. In introducing this radically new technology, they are struggling to meet the needs of their customers — us, the riders — not only in adaptability but also the technical challenges since many of the technicians learn on the job. To be fair, Bajaj mechanics learn the same way, yet the Bajaj maintenance industry has been in Kampala for much longer.
This creates discomfort for the pioneer e-riders, leaving us waiting an hour or two on the roadside for the technicians or the battery swappers when we can’t make it to Zembo’s locations. To understand the situation clearly, I’ll take you through the battery swap business model to see how it relates to the mode of action of boda riders who, in this case, are the focal point.
The battery swap business model.
Zembo motorcycles are powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. They don’t have engines, so they need neither petrol nor engine oil, instead using only batteries. Where riders of conventional motorcycles turn to petrol stations for a refill, Zembo riders turn to swap stations. At the swap station, the attendant removes the discharged battery from the motorcycle and replaces it with a charged one. The process requires an average of five minutes and the amount of money paid by the rider depends on the remaining amount of charge on the returned battery — riders are paying for units (kWh) of electricity.
Currently, swap cost for a depleted battery replaced by a fully charged one is 4,500 shillings, slightly higher than the price of a litre of petrol at 4,200. However, the distance covered on a fully charged battery is about ten to twenty kilometers more than the distance covered on a litre of petrol, so that electricity comes off slightly cheaper for the distance we drive. However, where the riders of conventional motorcycles can choose to get a full tank and travel long distances without interruptions, Zembo riders have to turn to swap stations quite often to swap the batteries. It’s advisable that one shouldn’t wait until the battery is depleted, as unlike a conventional motorcycle, we can’t tip the motorcycle on the side to get a little more fuel when we run out. This means it’s wiser for the rider to not exceed 40km on a single battery, though it’s capable of covering over 60km.
Since swap stations are still very few and are closed earlier than petrol stations, and sometimes the fully charged batteries are not readily available, riders are sometimes forced to cancel some trips. In addition to that, if a battery gets faulty, it stops working when it still has a high charge on it. So a rider who is using it gets stuck at a place far from swap stations. Though there’s a rescue plan, the affected rider may wait for more than an hour to receive help. The wasted time and the cancelled trips negatively affect our income. The only solutions seem to be to continue improving on the battery, and to keep opening up swap stations.
Under such circumstances, the pride of owning an e-bike, and the immediate benefits we felt from not having to buy oil or fix the engine, comes up against the inconveniences of a new technology. But we continue riding anyway. To us pioneers, possession of the e-bike — the bike of the future — is a test of patience and resilience.
But of course we are not alone in dealing with the inconveniences of a new technology.
There are boda-passengers who feel insecure when, during a trip to their destinations, we turn with them to unfamiliar places to swap the batteries. There are swappers (recharge attendants) who face confrontation from unhappy e-riders over battery issues. There is the tech team, which keeps improvising spare parts, stuck between irritated drivers and a lack of the unique spare parts of the e-bike. And there is the management team which, overwhelmed by both managerial issues and pressure to meet the needs of their customers, keeps promising us technical improvements which seem overly ambitious.
Generally, the current situation is that e-mobility services are not growing in favorable proportion to the increase of e-bikes. This means users’ needs are not satisfactorily met but, of course, the resultant discomfort is an indispensable component of growth to both Zembo management and the pioneer e-riders. On the side of Zembo management, emphasis has been put on improving battery performance. This, co-founder Daniel Dreher says, has seen significant decreases in the number of faulty batteries. He also asserts that they are working hard to improve on all aspects of the new business model and points out that they have opened around ten swapping stations over the past year.
Going forward
As with any new products or technologies, electric motorcycles need to work for us, the users. We know some things will be harder — there’s no trick to get an extra 5% charge out of a dead battery — but we also have seen the benefits of not having to pay 16,000 shillings every two weeks for oil. We also feel proud to know we are doing our part in cleaning up the smoky Kampala air, and using Ugandan-generated electricity to move BanaKampala around the city.
Since everything about e-mobility is new, and new technologies always face difficult learning curves, great leadership is paramount and collaboration is imperative. We the boda riders are already adapting, but as always there is a limit to how much we can adapt before compromising our freedoms. Until then, we celebrate every new swap station easing our burden, and we look forward to Zembo meeting us halfway.
