BasiGo has brought two 25-seat electric buses to Kenya which are currently undergoing performance and reliability testing in Nairobi. These buses started its pilot operation with select bus operators(East shuttle and Citi hoppa) in Nairobi at the beginning of March 2022.
BasiGo sources electric buses from BYD Automotive and these are capable of travelling 250km on a single charge. This offers a more modern and comfortable passenger experience than current diesel buses in Nairobi, especially considering the busses come equipped with USB Charging and Wi-Fi connectivity for all passengers.
According to Francis Mungai who heads the technical team, says they offer trainings to their drivers on how to respond in case of fire or smoke in the car, how to extinguish fire, how to report different cases to police, troubleshooting the bus, to reach out to team should any emergency occur. All the trainings are aimed at seeing the safety of driver as well as the passengers.
Compared to diesel buses which require service more often the electric needs close to zero service. BasiGo offers service to its bus after 15000 miles minor service and at 30,000 miles a major service. The bus comes with two liquid coolants.
Samuel Kamunya, Business development lead at BasiGo said they offer electric buses to bus operators (East shuttle) here Kenya through the company’s Pay-As-You-Drive financing solution, which enables public bus owners to purchase an electric bus for the same upfront cost as an equivalent diesel bus. Through this e-mobility business model, BasiGo plans to deploy more than 1,000 locally assembled electric buses in Nairobi over the next five years. However, at the end of the year they plan to import more that 15 electric buses in the country.
BasiGo is not the first EV provider in the market. Roam , a Swedish-Kenyan EV manufacturer, EkoRent Africa, a Finnish-Kenyan company that operates a fully electric taxi-hailing service, Ecotrify, an e-mobility infrastructure supplier and installer, and Kiri EV, an electric bike producer, are all introducing parallel schemes for electric transport.
