Spiro Kenya Is Taking E-Mobility Countrywide

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As Kenya’s largest city, most initiatives in any industry start in Nairobi. Of course, as the place with the highest number of motorcycles in the country, as companies worked to find solutions to electrify Kenya’s massive motorcycle taxi industry, most, if not all, of the companies in the sector started with Nairobi. As all the players work as best as they can within the resources they have, most are still working on scaling in and around Nairobi and Mombasa to a certain extent. Several companies are now spreading their operations to other cities across the country, reaching places like Nakuru.

Spiro, however, was one of the companies that entered the Kenya market after a number of players were already active in that market, and to better utilize their product offering at the time, it entered the Kenya market via Mombasa. It was a smart strategy, as the Mombasa market was underserved at that time. Spiro launched operations in Mombasa on the 1st of September in 2023. Spiro then worked to cover most of the major centers along the Kenyan coast. After that, Spiro launched operations in Nairobi on the 10th of June, 2024. Their operations initially covered the Nairobi metropolitan boundaries, including Kiambu, Kajiado, and Machakos County. This meant the company was focusing on the greater Nairobi metro area and not just the inner city. Spiro then expanded further to another county, this time in Uasin Gishu including its capital, Eldoret, and also moved into Kapsabet in Nandi County. All of these expansion moves included the energy side (battery charging and swap stations) as well as their electric motorcycles. Kisumu, Kisii, and the greater Kakamega county were next. This time Spiro launched operations in those three areas simultaneously, showcasing their improved scale and capabilities.

Spiro is now ramping up operations, and Raymond Kitunga, Spiro’s Deputy Country Head, said, “We have now scaled to a level where we now have a presence in 22 counties in Kenya. We now have an impressive fleet of over 7,500 electric motorcycles in Kenya. These operations are powered by our network of over 200 swap stations.” Spiro plans to have over 1,000 swap stations by the end of 2025. 

Spiro’s battery charging and swap stations come in several forms, including stations housed in normal brick and mortar buildings where Spiro rents space in those buildings. This can be like a simple shop where Spiro adds racks to accommodate up to 24 batteries. Another type is the automated swap station, an unmanned station with shelves accommodating up to 12 batteries. Here riders use the app to automatically open the cabinets where the batteries are stored and then easily access a fully charged battery, and then replace it with the discharged battery to be charged in that cabinet. Riders can access these on a 24-hour basis. Most of these are located at petrol stations where Spiro has signed strategic partnerships with major petrol stations in Kenya. 

The other type of swap station in Spiro’s setup can be configured in modular racks of 12, 24, or 36 shelves for batteries. The choice of setup is usually determined by the available electricity connection and transformer capacity. Spiro has a full time team that designs and installs these swap stations guided by each site’s characteristics, as well as permitting and metering processes with the respective key stakeholders such as Kenya Power. Some of the challenges they have experienced so far is in finding the ideal sites meeting all their electrical, visibility, and safety requirements as well as the wait times for meter applications. To put into perspective Spiro’s ambitious plans to scale quickly, there are just over 3,800 petrol stations in Kenya and Spiro wants to quickly get to 1,800 swap stations. That just shows how the transition to electric is moving fast in the Kenyan motorcycle sector.

As Spiro keeps adding electric motorcycles on the road at a record pace, Spiro has had to set up partnerships with dealers and service partners to get the spare parts, and can keep that whole supply chain going, including service and maintenance technicians. To facilitate all this, Spiro has launched its Pride Garage Mechanics (PGMs), which leverages the existing ICE motorcycle service and maintenance ecosystem. With over 2 million internal combustion engine motorcycles on Kenya’s roads, there is a well established network of technicians that service, maintain, and repair ICE motorcycles. Spiro has trained some of these technicians to be able to support Spiro’s electric motorcycle customers. A lot of these technicians are affiliated with dealers, and therefore Spiro supplies spare parts through these same channels.

It is also important to accelerate the adoption of electric motor vehicles in Kenya’s largest vehicle segment to reduce emissions. ICE motorcycles make up just over 50% of Kenya’s total vehicle population. Given the fact that Kenya’s grid is already exceptionally clean, switching to electric ASAP will have a massive impact. Renewables provide around 90% of Kenya’s electricity generation. By gradually increasing the penetration of electric motorcycles in Kenya, significant savings in CO2 emissions can be achieved. Given that Kenya curtails a lot of renewable geothermal energy due to low overnight uptake, the potential within the next 5–7 years to absorb this curtailed energy generation capacity is massive as shown below:

• 50,000 passenger cars would consume about 187.5 GWh/year.
• 500,000 electric motorcycles** would add another **500 GWh/year.
• 5,000 electric buses and trucks would contribute roughly 500 GWh/year.

Together, that is ~1.19 TWh annually, or about three times the energy Kenya currently curtails from its grid. After absorbing today’s wasted 300–400 GWh, EV growth would require 120–150 MW of new clean generation capacity. That’s not a burden, it’s an opportunity. EV adoption becomes the engine that pulls new geothermal, wind, and solar projects to market, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of cheaper energy and stronger industrial competitiveness.

Spiro says its motorcycles now consume over 140MWh of electricity per day, saving more than 70 tonnes of CO2 per day. As more electric motorcycles hit the road, these emissions savings will keep getting better.

Images courtesy of Spiro