Are Africa’s latest electric motorcycle battery swapping gains outpacing the world?
Battery swapping for electric motorbikes isn’t new technology, but its adoption rate has proven to be remarkably inconsistent around the world. One of the biggest surprises recently has been one of the places where such technology has grown rapidly: Africa.
Electric motorbike battery-swapping often takes hold in areas where car usage is outnumbered by motorbikes, meaning any advances in electrification have a much bigger impact on the population and the environment. Battery swapping allows an electric motorbike to operate essentially indefinitely, removing the need for recharging stops in favor of simply swapping out a depleted battery for a fully charged one.
Africa certainly doesn’t come up often in conversations around electric vehicle hotspots, but perhaps it should. The continent has quietly become a hub of electric motorcycle activity as multiple homegrown startups expand country by country and bring along a series of battery-swapping platforms.
Spiro, one of the largest players in the African electric motorbike market, counts a ridership of over 12,000 and a total network of at least 600 battery-swapping stations. Those stations have largely been manually run, requiring an employee to perform the swapping operation, but have still racked up over 7 million battery swaps so far.
Now, the company is announcing its first 50 automated battery-swapping stations. These stations use smart cabinets similar to those we have seen from other companies such as Vammo in South America, allowing riders to roll up, authenticate themselves, and then swap their own battery into an empty space for recharging while simultaneously receiving a freshly charged battery.
As Spiro’s CTO Samir Mishra explained:
“Our automated swap stations, paired with Spiro batteries, represent the pinnacle of safety and quality in the EV market. These stations are designed to offer our customers a seamless and secure experience, ensuring that every swap transparently conveys the exact value customers are paying for. The batteries are connected to the cloud around the clock making sure they meet the highest standards of performance and reliability.
At Spiro, we are committed to pushing the boundaries of technology to provide solutions that are not only innovative but also trustworthy, impactful and life-changing, bringing smiles to customers faces by adding a bit more cash to their pocket each day. We are raising the bar for electric mobility across Africa.”
By far the largest users of electric motorbikes in Africa are boda boda operators, or motorbike taxis. These are incredibly common in many African cities and are seen as the quickest way to get around town. In order for those riders to effectively switch to electric motorbikes though, they need a way to operate throughout the day. Battery swapping provides that solution, letting them “refuel” as quickly as a gas station fill-up but without the same harmful emissions – and without as much cost.
So could initiatives like Spiro’s automated battery-swapping stations leapfrog past the rest of the world? Potentially, though it depends on where you look. It’s likely not the case when compared to major competitors like Gogoro’s systems, which dominate in Asia. There’s an argument to be made when compared to electric motorbike battery swapping systems in Europe and South America, where progress exists but isn’t as well developed or proliferated as Gogoro’s technology. However, when compared to some of the most underdeveloped regions of the world such as North America – at least when considering battery swapping – Africa appears to not only hold a sizeable lead but is growing at a much faster rate.
Electrek’s Take
Perhaps one day the United States can look towards Africa and learn a thing or two about efficient, right-sized electric vehicles.
Or, you know, we can just keep crushing people under 8,000 lb electric SUVs on the way to the supermarket. Why mess with what’s working?
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In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.
France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.
At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.
And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:
While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.
That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.
“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”
The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.
You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.
Electrek’s Take
MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.
He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”
With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.
SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.
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GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.
GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.
At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.
The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.
Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”
SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.
Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction
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