In 2018, Kiira Motors partnered with China’s CHTC Motor Co, a subsidiary of state-owned Sinomach Automobile Co. Engineers at the Chinese car manufacturer trained Kiira Motors workers, and late last year the first two prototypes of the Ugandan e-bus, called the Kayoola EVS, were completed at a military facility 115km north of Kampala.
State-owned Kiira Motors plans to have an initial manufacturing capacity of 5 000 vehicles per year, including buses, starting in July 2021. The company will be selling the buses to private and public companies that operate transport routes in and around Kampala, so its prices will need to be competitive enough to compete with other providers selling fossil fuel vehicles to the same clients. Kiira says it has not signed any contracts yet, but is in talks with several clients.
The government is hoping that 90% of the e-bus parts could eventually be made in Uganda. While manufacturing the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles is a highly technical process that’s currently done mostly in China, some other parts of the bus can already be made locally, including the windows, air filters, frame and the 12V batteries that power the radio.
See Africa gets its first electric bus factory - TechCentral
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State-owned Kiira Motors plans to have an initial manufacturing capacity of 5 000 vehicles per year, including buses, starting in July 2021.
source https://gadgeteer.co.za/uganda-get-africas-first-electric-bus-factory
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