Okay so let’s all take a second to admit that this African electric motorcycle from Opibus is badass. Going Green first came across their story when researching start up and tech electric vehicle companies around the world, and something about their ruggedness really caught our eye. Since then, Opibus has been doing big things, including recently being featured by National Geographic. Let’s take a deeper look at Opibus, how they started, and where they see the future of electric transportation.
The Beginning
Opibus was founded in 2017 just as electric mobility was taking off, when electric cars were just arriving on African streets. Opibus’ vision is to make electric transport more accessible to a broader market by making the technology more cost efficient and simplifying deployment. The company focuses on all-electric conversion kits for fleet vehicles such as light trucks, public transport and buses, as well as electric motorcycles and energy systems. These focus areas have been chosen to maximize impact, as these vehicles are some of the highest CO2 emitting vehicles on the market and are largely an untapped opportunity.
A New Approach
This approach creates an ecosystem solution for sustainable transport, integrating technologies from the whole value-chain, with solutions within energy generation all the way to the end user driving the vehicles.
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Opibus was founded as a research project at one of Sweden’s top technical universities with a mission to implement electric mobility in emerging markets. This meant rethinking how the technology would be implemented and how it should be provided. Kenya was chosen as the location for the headquarters as it is the fastest growing nation in sub-saharan Africa. Kenya also has a growing amount of used vehicle imports, which means electric conversions really make sense, replacing expended combustion engines with electric systems, leveraging the existing chassis and implementing proven technology creates a cost effective second life for buses, trucks and fleet vehicles.
The future of The Electric Motorcycle
With multiple vehicles in different segments launched, Opibus has proven and validated the vehicles in one of the harshest terrains in the world. Showing that electric deployment in emerging markets not only works better, but makes financial sense. Not only saving customers immense amounts of fuel but also reducing CO2 emission from an accelerating global climate change.
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This is only the start of our journey, in the coming years we will be expanding to several markets around the globe. Simplifying implementation, increasing fleet efficiency, reducing cost and over the decade creating a positive impact on the world around us.
Talk about an awesome mission. Going Green’s goal is to highlight renewable energy and cleantech leaders around the world. Check out the Going Green Podcast to listen to interviews with some of the leading CEOs, Scientist, and thought leaders in renewable energy.
Dylan Welch is the CEO and Host of Going Green, a podcast, website, and social media brand that highlights renewable energy, cleantech, and sustainable news.