ARC Ride has grown to become a central player in the e-mobility sector, boasting a catalogue of electric motorbikes and tuk-tuks
When Jo Hurst set out on a journey to Africa to work in clean energy about 20 years ago, he had no idea that the trip would one day land him in Kenya, pioneering the adoption of electric motor vehicles and bicycles in the country.
Hurst, an investor, and researcher of clean and renewable energy, is the founder and chief executive officer of ARC Ride, a mid-size company in Nairobi assembling and selling electric motorcycles and tuk-tuks. The company also runs a chain of battery-swapping stations across Nairobi.
Founded three years ago, ARC Ride has grown to become a central player in the e-mobility sector, boasting a catalogue of electric motorbikes and tuk-tuks in its warehouse in the sprawling Industrial Area in Nairobi and the hands of many of its corporate clients.
It also has about 50 battery charging and swapping stations spread across Nairobi, allowing users of its products to charge and swap their batteries easily.
The driving force behind this business and product, Hurst says, has been the need to help the country transition into an electric transport system.
ARC Ride has, as a result, been building infrastructure and partnerships with various organisations to make this dream possible.
“The way that we move around really matters. It matters for the environment; it matters for the health of the city and just personal well-being of spending how many hours on transport, which affects your life and mental health,” Hurst told the Nairobi Law Monthly in an interview.
“So what Arc Ride is trying to do, and ARC stands for affordable, reliable, and clean – is about how do we change transport systems to enable them to be cost-effective and also impact the environment,” Hurst says.
Located at Go-Down 23, within the Central Business Park in Industrial Area, ARC Ride is also on course towards electric mobility. It is one of the major champions for green mobility.
Unlike most countries in the continent, Kenya has been hailed as one of the biggest champions of clean energy, ahead of many across the globe.
The country currently generates about 86% of electricity from renewable energy sources, according to recent data released by the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA).
But even with this milestone, the adoption of e-mobility and clean energy vehicles and even motorcycles has been on a slow trajectory, with some investors in the sector blaming the trend on the lack of incentives from policymakers and the government.
President William Ruto has previously announced a set of measures and policy decisions, including the reduction of taxes on e-mobility products, in what he says are commitments by the government to encourage the transition to clean energy in transport.
According to Ruto, Kenya plans to fully transition to green energy by 2028, a commitment he says can only be achieved through green mobility, among other factors.
“Most of our transport systems are informal; even the way we get to matatus, we mostly use a two or three-wheeler. And this is getting expensive because petrol is also getting expensive, which is our advantage with e-mobility transport,” Hurst says.
“And that with electricity generated in Kenya, we can power vehicles at a much lower price per kilometer than petrol and therefore deliver that affordable, reliable, and clean transport journey to people,” he added.
In its three years of existence, ARC Ride says it has been testing the market and building an infrastructure to allow mass adoption of electric vehicles.
Part of this investment has been setting up battery charging and swapping stations across the capital, in-house staff training in its assembly plant, and building a network of customers and clientele, starting with corporates dealing in delivery services and couriers.
“People do not want to wait three or four hours to charge their batteries. So, we have developed best-in-class swapping stations, a bit like how you want to go and change your gas cylinder.
“We have already installed 50 battery swapping stations across Nairobi and will launch additional ones in the next few weeks. So how this works is that you take your battery from the bicycle, come to one of these swapping stations, and in one minute, you swap, and you are back on the road,” Hurst says.
The company designs and builds electric vehicles and runs a battery-as-a-service business in Nairobi to be the leading Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) infrastructure provider for electric two- and three-wheel vehicles across Africa.
A typical motorcycle assembled and sold by ARC Ride, like the recently unveiled Corbett Electric Motorbike, comes with a 60-kilometre range, 60 km/h top speed, 200-kilogram Payload, a swappable battery, Synchro disc brake, front Suspension Anti-dive, 4-point adjustable and a 3-kW motor power.
Hurst says the company has also installed at least 50 battery swap stations across various Nairobi.
The stations have 405 watts of solar PV and can also use some of these motorcycle battery packs to back up the swap station in conjunction with the solar PV in the event of a grid power outage.
Riders can get unlimited battery swaps from Sh350 daily or Sh185 for the standard battery swap. Corbett outright sells for about Sh180,000.
“It is 40% cheaper on the road than on petrol. What this does is we put back about Sh200 to Sh300 back in their pockets that they would have spent on fuel because they are choosing to ride electric. And that comes back to the affordability of our product,” Hurst says.
The company is now hoping to scale and target the corporate market, having previously focused on testing with delivery and logistics companies.
“We are excited about bringing new riders into the eco-system as well as those who want to convert to electric and put more money into their pockets,” Hurst said.
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