By Elijah Odhiambo
Nairobi Public Service Vehicle (PSV) operators will get 15 electric buses from Kenyan electric vehicle startup, BasiGo.
On April, 12, BasiGo delivered two environmentally friendly buses to Citi Hoppa and Super Metro.
The transition to electric PSVs comes as President William Ruto’s administration strives to improve the nation’s PSV industry.
In an effort to hasten the adoption of electric mobility, Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has announced plans to draft policy to encourage uptake of electric vehicles.
The CS stated that the policy will give County Governments direction on how to encourage electric mobility in their respective areas, while speaking at the introduction of electric buses by BasiGo on Wednesday at Transcom House in Nairobi.
The advancement follows the creation of a clean, green transportation infrastructure as a means of halting climate change.
The Transport Ministry plans to take a number of actions, such as offering incentives and establishing a legal framework to promote the continued transition of buses from diesel and gasoline engines to electric ones.
“The Government will play its role in the transition to e-mobility by providing an enabling environment for development and mainstreaming e-mobility through fiscal incentives for importers, manufacturers, assemblers, sellers and spare part dealers,” CS Kipchumba said.
”The Government has prioritised the adoption of e-mobility in the country as one of the strategies of addressing climate change,” he added.
He said the Promotion to electric mobility is part of the strategies adopted to address emissions responsible for global warming and climate change, adding that it is against this background that the Kenya kwanza Government has committed to provide incentives for public service vehicles, bodaboda and commercial transporters to convert to electric vehicles.
Laws supporting the transition
The Government has already formulated Laws to aid in the transition to e-mobility.
They include the Climate Change Act of 2016, and the Energy, 2019.
Additionally, the government created standards for motorcycles and electric cars in collaboration with development partners (GIZ and UNEP) to ensure that inferior goods do not enter the nation.
A number of additional potential incentives are being evaluated as part of the draft National Green Fiscal Incentives Framework, along with the reduction of the excise tax on 100% EVs from 20 percent to 10 percent under the Finance Act of 2019.
The government is promoting the use of high-capacity vehicles in public transport for cities through the Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT).
Charging points have been established to facilitate the charging of the electric cars, which take 2 to 3 hours to fully charge and can allow a user to cover a total of 250 kilometers.
The CS urged the public to prepare to handle the end of life for batteries in the new shift to electric vehicles.
“As we promote electric mobility, we must prepare as a nation to deal with batteries’ end of life style in a manner that they will not cause any harm to the environment while exploring ways of recycling them or better ways of disposal will be crucial,” he added
