A Swedish-Kenyan company, Opibus, has introduced the first African-designed and manufactured electric bus in Kenya with the aim of bringing clean energy to public transportation.
\nA monitored report by VOA said Opibus, Kenya\u2019s first company to make electric motorcycles, plans to launch the bus commercially in a few months and bring it to markets across Africa by 2023.
\nAs other vehicles jostle for space while belching clouds of dark smoke in the streets of Nairobi, Benjamin Maina is driving a unique bus, one that is fully electric.
\n\u2018I feel privileged driving this vehicle,\u2019 Maina told VOA. \u2018It is also very amazing when you are driving this vehicle compared to the fossil fuel vehicles, considering there is a lot of vibration on fossil fuel vehicles and also a lot of noise. But with this vehicle, it\u2019s quite silent and very sleek.\u2019
\nPublic transport in Kenya and across the African continent is largely run informally, and emissions standards are rarely enforced, making the vehicles highly pollutive as Jane Akumu, a Sustainable Mobility expert at the UN Environment Programme explains.
\n\u2018If you look at the cities, the heavy-duty vehicles which are buses and trucks, that\u2019s the bulk of the pollution,\u2019 said Akumu. \u2018So, they are a big contributor to pollution. But as I said, they are also an opportunity. Because how do we shift to cleaner modes? Because we need mass transport to be sustainable to make cities more sustainable.\u2019
\nThe introduction of electric buses into the African market by Opibus is aimed at remedying the situation. Albin Wilson, the Chief of Strategy and Marketing at Opibus, noted.
\nAccording to him, \u201cthis electric bus is really an important first step in the transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric clean mobility.
\n\u201cAnd I think we are really showing precedence being the first movers in this market with a bus that is even locally developed\u201d, Wilson said.
\nExperts say Africa\u2019s electric car market, currently in its infancy, presents a huge opportunity for investment and the creation of green jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Swedish-Kenyan company, Opibus, has introduced the first African-designed and manufactured electric bus in Kenya with the aim of bringing clean energy to public transportation. A monitored report by VOA said Opibus, Kenya\u2019s first company to make electric motorcycles, plans to launch the bus commercially in a few months and bring it to markets across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-icttelecom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286309,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286308\/revisions\/286309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}