What a motorcycle taxi rider pays for petrol
A boda boda rider, a person who carries paying passengers on a motorcycle, typically earns about 10 to 15 dollars a day in Kenya and spends 40% to 60% of that on petrol. Those figures come from the International Energy Agency, the intergovernmental energy body, in a report revised in May 2026. On an electric motorcycle, the same agency says, energy costs the rider typically less than 2 dollars a day. Kenya has 3 million motorcycle taxi drivers, according to the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet.
Earnings and the electric figure are stated by the International Energy Agency. The petrol band is calculated by MAOWCE by applying the 40% to 60% fuel share in the same report to the same earnings band, so it is arithmetic on 2 agency figures rather than a figure the agency states.
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| Daily earnings | 10 to 15 dollars |
| Petrol energy cost | 4 to 9 dollars |
| Electric energy cost | under 2 dollars |
I used to spend around 700 shillings on fuel. Now, with the electric motorcycle, I only spend about 200 shillings on electricity.
Lilian Muyonga, a motorcycle taxi rider in Dagoretti South, Nairobi. Source 5.
The battery is the part a rider cannot buy
An electric motorcycle battery costs more than a rider can pay at once, so companies keep the battery and sell access to it instead. The International Energy Agency calls that battery as a service, meaning the company owns the battery and manages it for its whole life while the rider pays only to use it. Ampersand, which runs electric motorcycles in Rwanda and Kenya, said in August 2025 that it ran over 8,000 batteries for over 6,000 motorcycles and handed riders over 20,000 charged batteries a day. Those motorcycles cover over 900,000 kilometres a day, and 99% of the batteries are still in service after 18 months.
How many swapping stations there are
The International Energy Agency counts around 22,000 motorbikes from Spiro, a battery swapping company, across 7 African countries. It lists more than 200 swapping stations in Kenya, 105 in Uganda and more than 100 in Rwanda. The agency puts an average of 12 batteries at each of those stations, each one about 5 kilowatt hours.
The agency words the Kenya and Rwanda figures as more than 200 and over 100, so 2 of these 3 counts are minimums.
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| Kenya | 200 |
| Uganda | 105 |
| Rwanda | 100 |
What Kenya changed on February 3, 2026
Kenya launched a National Electric Mobility Policy on February 3, 2026, at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi, presented by Davis Chirchir, the Cabinet Secretary for Roads and Transport. Under the Finance Bill 2025, value added tax on electric motorcycles, buses, bicycles and lithium ion batteries is zero rated and the excise duty on electric motorcycles, bicycles and batteries is zero, so a buyer of an electric motorcycle pays no value added tax and no excise duty on either the vehicle or the battery. Cumulative electric vehicle registrations in Kenya rose from 1,378 in 2022 to 39,324 in 2025, growth the government states as over 2,700%, and the government says the bodaboda class rose by the largest percentage. Kenya imports about 5 billion dollars of petroleum a year.
Where the motorcycles are sold and built
Uganda and Kenya are counted inside the Africa total, not added to it. Africa sales were fewer than 1,000 in 2020. The agency words the country figures as more than 30,000 and more than 25,000.
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| All of Africa | 70 |
| Uganda | 30 |
| Kenya | 25 |
Electric 2 wheeler sales across Africa rose from fewer than 1,000 in 2020 to around 70,000 in 2025. More than 30,000 of those were in Uganda and more than 25,000 in Kenya, where they were around 15% of new 2 wheeler registrations. Roam, which designs, builds and sells electric motorcycles in Nairobi, employs 250 people and aims to build 50,000 motorcycles a year.
Our products are made in Africa, by Africa, and for Africa.
Filip Lovstrom, founder and chief executive of Roam, an electric motorcycle maker in Nairobi. Source 5.