A number that does not check out
Reports on electric two wheelers in Africa often repeat one line, that switching from a petrol motorcycle or tricycle doubles the profit margin of a farmer hauling crops to market. None of the 5 sources checked for this article states that number. What does check out is narrower, and still large enough to matter to a farmer counting the cost of a trip.
What a solar charged tricycle changed in Zimbabwe
Between 2018 and 2020, 90 smallholder farmers in the Wedza district of Zimbabwe took part in a peer reviewed pilot of a solar charged electric tricycle, locally called the hamba. Almost all of them, 98%, depended on farming for a living. Before the tricycle, getting a load to market over 15 kilometres meant paying an overloaded informal lift service, 6 dollars a trip. With the tricycle, the same trip cost 1 dollar.
This is the reported cost for 1 farmer group in the Wedza pilot in Zimbabwe, not a national average.
Show the numbers
| With the tricycle | 1 |
| Without it | 6 |
So, I wanted to use the Hamba as a source of transport to transport my maize from the farm field to the market.
Participant F6, a farmer in the Chipinge focus group of hamba users in Zimbabwe. Source 2.
Without the Hamba, the produce would rot at the field because I cannot take the produce to the market.
Participant F5, a woman in the same Chipinge focus group of hamba users in Zimbabwe. Source 2.
How much more it carried
Carrying more in one trip means less spent on transport and less produce left to spoil in the field. Dividing the counts the study itself gives, farmers carried 3 times as much maize, 3 times as much avocado, and 4 times as much water per trip with the tricycle as without it. That comparison is a calculation made for this article from the study numbers, not a figure the study states directly.
These are ratios calculated for this article from the with and without counts the study states. This form ignores series, so no legend is drawn.
Show the numbers
| Maize taken to the miller | 3 |
| Avocados carried | 3 |
| Water fetched | 4 |
A different vehicle, a similar story in Kenya
The Zimbabwe data covers a 3 wheeler, not a 2 wheeler, so the closest evidence for the running cost half of the original claim is a separate life cycle and total cost of ownership study, which tracks every cost of owning and running a vehicle, not just its price. It priced a real electric motorcycle assembled in Kenya at 2050 dollars against 1140 dollars for a comparable petrol motorcycle. Running costs, fuel or electricity plus maintenance, over a year of heavy daily use came to about 1950 dollars for the petrol motorcycle and about 212 dollars for the electric one, a fall of close to 90%. The higher upfront price pays for itself in about 7 months in cash, or about 2 months under a typical Kenyan financing plan. This study covers riders in Kenyan cities, not farmers, and a 2 wheeler rather than the 3 wheeler used in Zimbabwe.
This is a calculation made for this article, dividing the 2 annual totals stated by a Kenyan life cycle study by the annual distance it states, cited at 1 remove through source 3. It describes general motorcycle riding in Kenyan cities, not a measured farm trip.
Show the numbers
| Petrol motorcycle | 6.8 |
| Electric motorcycle | 0.7 |
What these vehicles can carry
A World Bank report on Kenyan motorcycle ride hailing gives the payload rating missing from the Zimbabwe study, the weight 2 real electric motorcycle models are rated to carry, 220 kilograms for one model and 250 kilograms for another. The same report says small motored motorcycles, electric or petrol, cannot carry heavy loads or climb steep hills. Neither figure is the doubled margin once claimed. Together they show why the cost of the trip is worth measuring in the first place.