Two Bus Routes, One in Kenya and One in Rwanda, Now Served by 100% Electric Buses!

Last Updated on: 27th May 2025, 11:17 am

OMA Service Limited just became the first operator in Nairobi, Kenya, to run an all-electric fleet on a core route. OMA Service Limited has just retired all of its diesel busses that were serving the Kariobangi South–to–Nairobi CBD route. The route will now exclusively be served by OMA Service Limited’s 12 electric buses. The buses were supplied by BasiGo. OMA Service Limited is targeting a 30-bus fully electric fleet by 2026.

That is some awesome news from Kenya. Now here is some more awesome news from Rwanda: This past week, Kigali’s first all-electric scheduled route from Nyabugogo to Kabuga went live powered by 10 BasiGo electric buses. This was all made possible in partnership with Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA), the City of Kigali, Ecofleet, and bus operators.

Good things are happening in Africa, especially when it comes to electric vehicles. The transition to electric is well underway in a number of countries, especially in the electric bus and electric motorcycle sectors. In Kenya and Rwanda, BasiGo is leading the transition to electric buses. It’s great to see that in fewer than 4 years, BasiGo is making significant traction to the point where we are now starting to see some of its customers retiring some diesel buses and in the process make some routes purely electric.

The two routes in Rwanda and Kenya are just the beginning and we will see more routes in East Africa going all electric. This will be a very welcome development. BasiGo’s website says every day, over one million buses travel Africa’s roads, providing the most affordable and accessible mode of transport. But this diesel-powered fleet emits 1 gigatonne of CO2 each year. Their emissions choke Africa’s cities with air pollution. And their operation depends on fuel imported from overseas. Africa is home to the world’s fastest growing population and economy. To keep pace, Africa needs a sustainable mobility revolution, powered by the continent’s abundant renewable energy. BasiGo is on a mission to make Africa the global leader in affordable, low-carbon public transport.

To help transition Africa’s bus fleet to electric, BasiGo plans to have 1,000 buses in operation within the next three years. BasiGo is well on the way there. So far, BasiGo has 65 buses in operation. These buses have driven 4,373,349 km, avoiding 1,959 T of CO2 emissions, from 876,376 litres of diesel avoided. BasiGo has so far carried 7,704,034 passengers.

BasiGo introduced an innovative model that makes transitioning to electric a much simpler process for bus operators. BasiGo says with diesel buses, owners are directly responsible for fuel, service, repairs, and management of their fleet, whereas BasiGo’s Pay-As-You-Drive model eliminates this burden. When a bus owner signs up for a Pay-As-You-Drive E-Bus, BasiGo provides all charging, all scheduled maintenance, and roadside assistance free of charge. Through the PAYD portal, BasiGo also provides owners with real-time monitoring and comprehensive analytics of every electric bus in their fleet. BasiGo says it is bringing more than just electric buses to Africa’s bus operators. BasiGo adds that with Pay-As-You-Drive, bus owners get transparency, simplicity, and peace of mind from their bus operation. BasiGo manages all aspects of charging infrastructure deployment and management, including the cost of power. Through Pay-As-You-Drive, operators know their buses will be charged every night from a charging network that is convenient, reliable, and guaranteed.

Let’s take a look at the current state of Kenya’s bus ecosystem as an example. Over the past 3 years, bus operators have added 6,747 new buses. 2,173 buses were added in 2022. There was a sharp increase in new registrations in 2023, with 3,122 buses added. 2024, however, saw a sharp decline with the number of buses registered in that year falling to just 1,452. The good news is that the number of electric buses has been increasing — although, starting from a small base. Three electric buses were registered in 2022, 18 in 2023, and 32 in 2024. The market share of electric buses has been nudging upwards a bit from 0.1% in 2022 and 0.6% in 2023 to 2.2% in 2025. Most of these buses have been supplied by BasiGo. The market share in 2024 was also helped by the fact that ICE bus sales fell sharply in 2024.

Looking into the future, the market share is expected to go up at a much faster pace. BasiGo intends to have 1,000 electric buses in East Africa within the next three years. If we assume 60% of these will be deployed in Kenya and assume one hundred more this year, 150 in 2026, and 350 in 2027, taking the average number of buses added over the past three years (2,249), that would mean market shares of 4.4% in 2025, around 6.7% in 2026, and 15.6% in 2027. These numbers are very much achievable and would make the electric bus sector one of the sectors with the highest levels of electrification in Kenya, behind the electric motorcycle sector. The share of electric motorcycles rose to 3.6% in 2023, from 2.8% in 2022 and 0.5% in 2021. 2024 was even better — market share surged to 7.1%. The KNBS Economic Survey Report (2025) shows that 68,804 new motorcycles were registered Kenya in 2024. Of these, 4,862 motorcycles were electric according to data presented by the Electric Mobility Association of Kenya (EMAK). That is where the 7.1% market share comes from.

So, the electric bus and electric motorcycle sectors look set to flourish in East Africa. These are the sectors that serve the needs of most commuters, as most people rely on buses and motorcycle taxis to get around in the major East African cities. This is great because it means more people get to experience the beautiful world of electric mobility and operators get to reduce their operational costs due to the lower total cost of ownership associated with electric vehicles. On a national level, most of these countries import all of their petrol and diesel. Substituting a sizeable portion of these fossil fuel imports with locally generated electricity to power these electric buses and motorcycles will go a long way in addressing some of their trade deficits.