When we approved our first electric bike loan, we honestly didn't know if EVs would work in Uganda. Twelve months in, here's what the field has told us — separated from the hype.
Charging is solvable, range is not
Riders adapt to charging far faster than skeptics expect. Swap stations work. Home overnight charging works for shorter routes. The constraint is not charging — it's range under load.
A loaded EV bike (rider + 2 passengers + cargo on the back) loses 25–40% of advertised range on Kampala's hills. Riders learn this in week one and route accordingly, but the marketing range numbers are not the real-world range numbers. Underwriting has to account for this when sizing the loan.
Battery economics — the part nobody talks about
A motorbike engine lasts a decade if maintained. A battery degrades on a known curve and will need replacement somewhere around year three. Whoever owns the bike at that point owns a meaningful capital expense.
For us, this changed two things:
- We shortened EV loan terms vs. ICE — borrower finishes paying before the first battery question lands.
- We started tracking mileage on each tracker and reporting it back to suppliers. If a battery underperforms its warranty, we want the data to make the case.
What riders actually like
The boring answer wins: lower fuel cost. Riders save UGX 8–12,000 per day on fuel, which is real money. Acceleration is a distant second. Silence — which Western EV buyers love — Ugandan riders are actively neutral on; they want to be heard at intersections.
What we'd do differently
We'd push suppliers harder on standardised battery interfaces from the start. Fragmentation across brands means a rider whose battery dies has to hope their specific supplier still stocks it. That's a structural risk we underweighted at the outset.
EV financing isn't a charity exercise and shouldn't be sold as one. Done with discipline, it's a real product — but only if the underwriting reflects the real-world data, not the brochure.