Africa’s path to clean mobility — driven by motorcycles -?á23 December, 2022 17:26

A lack of infrastructure in parts of Africa has made unregulated, gas-powered motorcycle taxis widespread — a system that gets people where they need to be, but heavily pollutes the air and excludes drivers from the formal economy. TED Fellow and entrepreneur Adetayo Bamiduro offers his vision for a cleaner, more equitable future, where an electric motorcycle service helps green Africa’s transportation and transform the lives and livelihoods of drivers.

I join you from Lagos, Nigeria, one of the largest cities in Africa. By 2050, Lagos will outgrow many of the largest cities of the world, including New York and Mexico City, and will be home to over 32 million people. By that same date, Nigeria will be home to more people than the United States. But there is a problem. Lagos and other African megacities suffer, or are plagued by, limited road infrastructure, pollution, congestion and poor safety conditions. This makes it very difficult for people to get to work, especially in low-income communities, where poverty infrastructure gaps are pervasive.

00:48

Enter the African motorcycle taxi driver. Driving on two and three wheels, they race through the congested streets of Africa, getting people and goods to where they need to be. Unfortunately, these drivers are excluded from the formal economy. Unable to afford to buy clean, efficient vehicles, they are left to rent old gas engines from exploitative loan sharks. Because of this tough situation that these drivers endure, they are often left to fend for themselves. Part of what they also endure and suffer is high cost of operations from these exploitative loan sharks. And also, these drivers pollute the environment. If nothing is done, pollution from two- and three-wheeled vehicles in Africa will hit 1.7 gigatonnes of emissions every year, according to our estimates. This is equivalent to pollution from two million Boeing 737 airplanes, every single year.

01:53

I left my engineering job in 2013 to go to MIT, where I met my cofounder, Chinedu Azodoh, a fellow engineer with similar dreams. We bonded about the realization that Africa was being left behind in the global transition to clean mobility. Inspired by the work of other innovators around the world, we chose to embark on a journey to create a three-part solution, which provides motorcycle taxi drivers in Africa access to electric vehicles, battery swaps and maintenance and also emergency assistance.

02:30

Here is how it works. Drivers sign up on the platform and instantly, they get access to an electric motorcycle and a full battery swap. So therefore, they’re able to save up and earn money to buy those vehicles. In addition, we also help lower their risks by providing them access to emergency response, health insurance and maintenance plans. This represents an integrated approach to the design, manufacturing, financing and operations of an electric mobility platform targeted at highly vulnerable, informal and unbanked people groups. The revenue from the drivers covers the cost of the electric fleet and the batteries, while the cost of R and D and technology is covered by our partners, including foundations, nonprofits and investors.

03:25

Meet Baba Gbenro, one of our drivers. Before signing up on our platform, he was a smallholder farmer, earning three dollars a day in the Gbamu Gbamu community in southwestern Nigeria. Tragedy struck when Baba Gbenro lost his first son. Without help, he struggled to transport farm produce and therefore could not make ends meet. After signing up on our platform, he immediately got access to an electric motorcycle plus a fully charged battery on a daily basis. This enabled him to be able to transport people in his community, make a little bit more money and also meet his obligations, including sending his younger son to school. Our platform enabled him to increase his net income, on a daily basis, from three dollars to six dollars.

04:14

To date, our platform has served a network of over 15,000 drivers, and our data shows that the average driver has about five dependents, meaning that our work has likely impacted over 75,000 livelihoods.

04:28

By 2025, our goal is to provide electric mobility solutions to over 150,000 of drivers. And if this idea really takes off, electric mobility innovators and climate entrepreneurs in Africa could jointly impact over 10 million motorcycle taxi drivers. By doing this, we will be helping to move the world’s youngest and fastest-growing continent towards a more sustainable and a prosperous future, and we will be creating jobs and reducing emissions.

05:05

Thank you very much.

05:06

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