A Kenyan startup and a veteran vehicle manufacturer have joined forces to put electric buses on Nairobi’s streets — and the deal could reshape public transit across East Africa. BasiGo, founded in May 2021 C.E., and Associated Vehicle Assemblers (AVA) announced a partnership to assemble 1,000 electric buses in Mombasa over three years, with the first 15 units already completed and ready for service.
At a glance
- Electric bus assembly: AVA completed the final assembly of 15 twenty-five-seat electric buses in January 2023 C.E. — the first electric buses assembled in Kenya.
- Job creation: The 1,000-bus manufacturing target is expected to generate over 300 factory jobs and at least 300 more in charging, maintenance, and financing support roles.
- Pay-As-You-Drive model: BasiGo’s financing structure makes upfront costs for electric buses competitive with diesel, lowering the barrier for matatu and bus operators to switch.
From concept to the road in under two years
BasiGo launched commercial operations in March 2022 C.E. By the time the AVA partnership was announced, its buses had already covered more than 141,000 kilometers and carried more than 185,000 passengers through fleet agreements with two Nairobi operators, East Shuttle and Citi Hoppa.
That track record matters. One of the biggest obstacles to electric vehicle adoption in developing economies is operator hesitation — unfamiliarity with the technology, uncertainty about reliability, and the higher sticker price compared to diesel. BasiGo’s early pilots were designed specifically to answer those doubts with real data from real routes.
The partnership with Associated Vehicle Assemblers takes the next logical step: moving from importing partially assembled units to building them locally. AVA has operated in Mombasa since 1975 C.E. and is widely regarded as East Africa’s most experienced multi-brand vehicle assembler. Its facilities already handle body building, specialty vehicle modification, and supply chain logistics — capabilities that translate directly to electric bus production.
Why the financing model is the real story
Technology alone rarely drives adoption at scale. What often determines whether a clean-energy solution spreads is whether the economics work for the people who have to pay for it day to day.
BasiGo’s Pay-As-You-Drive structure addresses this directly. Rather than asking operators to absorb the full upfront cost of a new electric bus — which is higher than a comparable diesel vehicle — the model spreads costs in a way that aligns with how bus operators actually earn revenue: per kilometer driven. The result is that the day-one financial burden becomes competitive with diesel, while operators benefit from lower fuel and maintenance costs over time.
This kind of financing innovation has been credited with accelerating solar adoption across sub-Saharan Africa through pay-as-you-go energy companies like M-KOPA and similar providers. Applying a similar logic to mass transit has significant potential — particularly in cities where matatu networks carry millions of passengers daily but operate on thin margins.
Kenya’s broader electric vehicle ambitions
Kenya has positioned itself as a regional leader in clean energy, drawing on its substantial geothermal and wind resources to power a grid that is already among the greenest on the continent. Electrifying public transit connects that clean electricity supply directly to urban mobility, reducing tailpipe emissions in some of Nairobi’s most congested corridors.
BasiGo CEO Jit Bhattacharya said the company is “committed to delivering electric buses that are 100% assembled in Kenya,” calling the AVA deal a step toward making Kenya “a leader in the manufacturing of modern electric vehicles.” Moses Nderitu, BasiGo’s Chief Revenue Officer, added that the two companies aim to make Kenya “a leader in the manufacturing of state-of-the-art electric vehicles, a segment that is destined to grow rapidly in the years to come.”
The manufacturing angle matters as much as the climate one. Kenya, like many African economies, has long imported finished vehicles rather than building them domestically. A viable local electric bus industry would keep more of the economic value — wages, supplier contracts, technical skills — inside the country.
The United Nations Environment Programme has identified electric mobility as a priority for African cities, where rapid urbanization is straining aging transport infrastructure. Kenya’s approach — pairing local assembly with an accessible financing model — offers a potential template for other countries navigating the same pressures.
What still needs to happen
The 1,000-bus target is ambitious, and much depends on whether charging infrastructure can expand quickly enough to support a larger fleet. Kenya’s grid is relatively clean, but urban charging networks remain sparse, and financing for operators at scale will require continued bank partnerships and possibly government support.
It is also worth noting that the 15 buses completed in January 2023 C.E. were shipped to Kenya in partially assembled form before local assembly began — full local manufacturing of components remains a longer-term goal. The transition from assembly to full domestic production is a significant step that BasiGo and AVA have not yet taken.
Still, the distance from founding to first assembled electric buses — roughly 20 months — is a signal that the pace of change in African clean transport can surprise even optimistic observers. Whether the model scales beyond Kenya will be one of the more closely watched experiments in emerging-market electric mobility over the next few years.
Read more
For more on this story, see: CleanTechnica
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- Ghana establishes a new marine protected area at Cape Three Points
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Kenya
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