When Rwanda’s president said last August that he wanted all of the country’s motorbikes to be electric as soon as possible, Ampersand’s waiting list exploded. The country’s first electric motorbike company now has about 7,000 drivers in line for its vehicles. The problem is it can deliver just 40 bikes by the end of March.
For Josh Whale, Ampersand’s CEO, the demand shows that Africa’s population isn’t content with second-hand trends from affluent countries. People are impatient for the most efficient technology.
"Countries here leapfrogged landlines and went straight to cell phones, and leapfrogged conventional finance to go straight to mobile money,” he said. "Now Africa’s growth is leapfrogging petrol to go to electric vehicles.”
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