President William Ruto drove an electric car to attend the inaugural ceremony of the 2023 Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi. This was a symbolic gesture that Kemya is ready to embrace Electric Vehicles in a bid to improve climate change. But is Kenya ready.. Do we have the capacity?
Kenya is a country of mystery. Just the other day, the country experienced close to three days of complete black out in the country. This included the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. This means that if the electric vehicles were in operation, services would have been a mess.
The inconsistency of the country’s power grid to provide adequate and reliable power continously is an hindrance to the EVs implementation. People will always ask, “Na stima ikienda?”
Lack of adequate charging station can also be a big challenge. Before implementing the electric vehicles, can we work on where they’ll charge. Most of these stations are in Nairobi, so if someone wants to go upcountry, he is not assured that he’ll get a charging point.
Charging points can be added on popular petrol stations along highways and minor towns to ensure that the EV can easily charge. This will be the first step towards actualizing the dream. We can’t start with vehicles then charging points. Let’s first deal with charging points.
Service maintenance and repair is another issue. Those with the know how on how to repair these vehicles are few. And machines are always prone to break down. With few skilled mechanics, owners will have a hard time getting repairs and maintenance of these vehicles.
Sparepart shops have also not been set up. Even though this will depend on demand, it’s essential to have a Sparepart store for start up. Before someone buys the EV, he must check where he’ll buy the Spareparts. This is where the shops come in. With more shops, it’s easier to convince someone to get the Electric Vehicle.
If the government is serious about implementing the Electric Vehicles, these are the issues that need to be looked into. If these issues are solved first, people will not even be pushed to buy. They’ll do so willingly. Therefore the government should work on how the vehicles will run before asking Kenyans to get them.