The Life Story of Ecomobilus Technologies Limited, Kenya — emKoko Project – CleanTechnica

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By Prof Geoffrey Gitau

Here is a story showcasing how innovation in Kenya’s electric mobility sector is helping to address real problems where it matters most. Pedestrian-pulled handcarts (called mkokoteni in Kenya) play a crucial role in Kenya, providing a channel for informal traders to get their goods all around from suppliers to marketplaces. The story of Ecomobilus sheds light on the potential for e-mobility to be transformational.

Ecomobilus Technologies Limited is a startup established in 2022 to pursue e-mobility and solar technological engineering projects. The formation of the company arose from a coinciding problem encountered by the founders (Paul Waweru and myself) regarding access to EV replacement batteries for their scooters in the aftermarket both in Kenya and even in the OEM source countries. Initial projects were focused on custom-designed lithium battery packs for aftermarket replacement for their customers. They achieved this by use of second-life lithium cells recovered selectively from discarded laptop batteries, most of which had over 80% integrity capacity.

The battery packs went a long way in providing affordable lithium batteries for e-mobility in Kenya for its early adopters. Then came the demand of those wishing to convert from gasoline internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to EVs. In response to this, we undertook our first successful ICE to EV conversion of a motorcycle, which resulted in a series of conversions of several versions of motorcycles and quadbikes, with the patronage of Zetech University and Chandaria Business Incubation Centre, Kenyatta University. Lithium cells that could not provide sufficient capacity for EVs, but with at least 70% integrity capacity, were used to build solar charged power stations for use by small businesses such as saloons and barbershops at less than 30% the cost of an equivalent OEM product.

It was during this process that the company started getting media highlights from Kenya and internationally. This led us to receive a stream of invites for attendance at EV showcasing events sometimes supporting other existing EV companies that had a gap in their technical capacity. During these events, we met many enthusiasts who made requests for different EV products and lithium battery solutions. One of the clients was Sow Precise, who were carrying out a project dubbed “SunRider” to provide mobile irrigation as a service in a model akin to the “Uber” hailing cab service. They were operating a farm in Mbeere South, Embu County, approximately 150 km from the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi.

From the model farm, they would showcase effective irrigation models using solar, and from there provide solar powered irrigation services to their customers using a manual pedestrian-pulled handcart (called mkokoteni in Kenya) to move the irrigation implements from farm to farm in areas of 10 km square. This was not only tiresome but unsustainable because they could only manage to deliver the service to very few farms due to the time consumed pulling the mkokoteni. When they consulted us, we decided to take up the project of building for them an electric mkokoteni, that we dubbed emKoko.

The specifications for the emKoko were supposed to be 400kg LW, 4ft by 7ft, with a 48V 45Ah lithium battery and a 3kW motor including a rider seat. We commenced the project in mid-Aug 2024. This project posed to us a number of challenges. The biggest challenge was that we had no replica project in our view to benchmark from. This called for a lot of ingenuity and creativity. We modeled it after the traditional mkokoteni, except we had to consider ease of maneuverability in the farm, requiring good ground clearance, torque, off-road tackling, and all necessary rugged application — yet reliable enough to avoid challenges of sending our engineers to the distant field support. We, therefore, settled for a rear-seat-driven model similar to a loader and made some battery upgrades to 72V45AH to give it more muscle energy for 0.5T payload.

The engineers took a modular design of a separate chassis and the cargo bed, with a focus on coming up with a CKD product. The construction and assembly took us approximately 1 month, and few days were spent on wiring and other finishes. Our biggest challenge was cost because we often had to re-work a number of our designs at our cost since we had to deliver the best at the end of the day. As the work progressed, enthusiasm was very high, with our engineers working into nights and weekends and holding numerous consultative meetings in-house and with engineers drawn from other EV companies in Kenya, who would pay regular visits to assess our progress and give useful insights.

Finally, the end of September 2024 delivered our initial MVP and we proceeded with its final reviews and reworks to deliver the complete unit in the first week of October 2024. We shipped it on lorry to the client and went to its launch on 7^th October 2024, with the occasion graced by the USAID Mission Director for Kenya and East Africa, David Gosney. Our profound gratitude goes to Ms Linda Kamau and the team of Sow Precise for believing in us and giving a platform to realize the first functional electric handcart in Kenya and in this region. Also, much thanks go to our engineering team, their friends, and the engineering fraternity (including EnviroServe) who made different contributions to the project, and to the entire Ecomobilus team. We now look forward to replicating this vehicle for all of Africa, where movement of heavy loads by human or animal-pulled carts is common in both cities and rural areas.

We are glad to partner with any organizations and entities who can extend funding or technical support. We have received numerous enquiries from across Africa, with some asking for several adaptations of the design to suit their countries’ policy limitations on EV design registration requirements. New projects underway include a solarized light car with Murang’a University of Technology, Kenya, and a new triad joint collaboration between Ecomobilus, Murang’a University, and the University of Kigali, Rwanda, for regional EV projects targeting the African markets.

Prof Gitau has made a bold move to resign from full time teaching employment to focus on the daunting task of building this startup. Initial signs are good, although they have not received funding yet. The flow of new orders is convincing and there are several overseas entrants who are courting them for a JV. The company has won several awards so far, including the Africa Green Technology Award at the Connected Africa Summit, 2024; and Zetech University’s Best Innovation in the year 2024.