Roam Electric - Closing the full lifecycle of electric motorcycle batteries

Nairobi (Kenya) · 2017 · Roam Electric (formerly Opibus) — Swedish-Kenyan electric mobility company headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya (founded 2017)

Roam has moved from pilot to commercial scale: it is Kenya's leading electric-motorcycle maker, with a Nairobi manufacturing plant, a nationwide financing network, and several hundred employees across manufacturing, hub operations and maintenance. Its hub and buy-back model keeps a growing stock of used batteries inside a formal, traceable channel rather than the informal scrap economy, positioning Roam to scale second-life BESS deployment as more Roam Air units reach end of first life. Economic impact is documented at rider level: eliminating fuel costs and reducing maintenance allows boda-boda and delivery riders to raise take-home pay, with individual riders reporting daily savings redirected to school fees and household needs. Programmes such as Boda Girls, supporting women riders who use Roam Air motorcycles to transport expectant mothers to hospitals in rural Siaya County, add a health and gender-equity dimension beyond transport emissions. On infrastructure, the ENERGICA-funded expansion added ten further solar-powered Roam Hubs in Nairobi (announced November 2024), and the November 2025 launch of Roam Point created Kenya's first open-standard fast-charging network for any light electric vehicle, with nationwide rollout targeted for 2026 along corridors linking Nairobi to Machakos, Thika, Kiambu and Kajiado. Roam has already opened outlets in Kiambu and, in May 2025, Machakos County (with TotalEnergies), showing the model's geographic replicability within Kenya ahead of second-life BESS scale-up.

Highlight

Kenya's leading electric-motorcycle maker is closing the loop on the most expensive and polluting part of e-mobility — the battery — by combining home charging, solar-powered swap hubs and a universal fast-charging network with a second life for retired batteries as rural energy storage.

Extended description

• Context and problem: East Africa has more than 5 million petrol motorcycles on its roads, a major source of urban air pollution and CO₂ emissions, while millions of rural households and public facilities remain off-grid or poorly served by the electricity network. EV battery life-cycle management — sourcing critical minerals, avoiding landfill waste and financing costly stationary storage — is a growing bottleneck for both e-mobility and rural electrification in emerging markets.

• How it works: Roam addresses both problems with a single asset. The Roam Air motorcycle uses a removable dual lithium-battery system (2 x 3.24 kWh) that riders can charge at home from a standard outlet or exchange for a charged pack at a Roam Hub, avoiding downtime and the need for large upfront investment in charging infrastructure. Kenya's grid was roughly 90% renewable (geothermal, hydro, wind, solar) in 2021, so the motorcycles run on largely clean electricity from day one. Once a battery's usable capacity falls to 70–80% — no longer sufficient for the torque and range required by daily commercial riding — it is collected through Roam's hub network rather than discarded, and repurposed as second-life battery energy storage system (BESS) units deployed to power rural microgrids, off-grid solar systems, and community facilities such as schools and health centres.

• Technology and infrastructure: The system relies on a battery management system (BMS) for real-time monitoring of state of health and safety, standard and fast-charging hardware, and locally built assembly and logistics hubs in Nairobi. In November 2025, Roam launched Roam Point, described as Africa's first universal, open-standard fast-charging network for light electric vehicles. It uses Type 6 connectors compatible with two-wheelers, tuk-tuks and light passenger vehicles, adds 10–20 km of range in under five minutes and allows any brand's vehicle to charge on the network.

• Stakeholders and operational logic: boda-boda riders and delivery operators are the direct users and are financed through partners such as M-Kopa, 4G Capital, Mogo and Watu Credit with deposits from around KES 10,000. Roam co-locates hubs with fuel retailer TotalEnergies (five joint sites by mid-2025) and works with the ENERGICA consortium, funded under the EU's Horizon 2020 programme, to add further solar-powered hubs. Rural communities, schools and health facilities are the intended beneficiaries of second-life BESS deployment, while the national utility benefits from a charging load that is increasingly grid-integrated as e-mobility scales.

• Systemic implications: by pairing first-life motorcycle use with second-life stationary storage, Roam reduces demand for newly mined lithium, cobalt and nickel, extends the useful life of costly battery assets, and builds a domestic ecosystem of maintenance, refurbishment and eventual recycling jobs — a model increasingly referenced in Kenyan market and policy studies on second-life EV batteries.

Demonstrated metrics

• The Roam Air produces zero direct tailpipe CO₂ versus roughly 27 g CO₂/km for a comparable petrol motorcycle, on a Kenyan grid that was about 90% renewable in 2021

• Up to 70% lower running cost than an equivalent petrol motorcycle at its 2022 launch; company communications cite higher savings more recently

• Kenya passed 35,000 cumulative registered electric vehicles (mostly two- and three-wheelers) by the end of 2025, up from fewer than 800 three years earlier

• Electricity consumed for EV charging in Kenya rose 188% in 2025, to 8.43 million kWh (from 2.92 million kWh in 2024), per Kenya Power

• Roam employs over 250 people; its Nairobi plant assembles around 15 motorcycles per day, and its service centre handles up to 3,500 motorcycles per month

• Roam Point fast chargers add 10–20 km of range in under five minutes; a full ~80 km battery charge takes about 20 minutes

Real impact

• Roam has moved from pilot to commercial scale: it is Kenya's leading electric-motorcycle maker, with a Nairobi manufacturing plant, a nationwide financing network, and several hundred employees across manufacturing, hub operations and maintenance. Its hub and buy-back model keeps a growing stock of used batteries inside a formal, traceable channel rather than the informal scrap economy, positioning Roam to scale second-life BESS deployment as more Roam Air units reach the end of their first life.

• Economic impact is documented at rider level: eliminating fuel costs and reducing maintenance allows boda-boda and delivery riders to raise their take-home pay, with individual riders reporting daily savings redirected to school fees and household needs. Programmes such as Boda Girls, supporting women riders who use Roam Air motorcycles to transport expectant mothers to hospitals in rural Siaya County, add a health and gender-equity dimension beyond transport emissions.

• On infrastructure, the ENERGICA-funded expansion added ten further solar-powered Roam Hubs in Nairobi (announced November 2024), and the November 2025 launch of Roam Point created Kenya's first open-standard fast-charging network for any light electric vehicle, with nationwide rollout targeted for 2026 along corridors linking Nairobi to Machakos, Thika, Kiambu and Kajiado. Roam has already opened outlets in Kiambu and, in May 2025, Machakos County (with TotalEnergies), showing the model's geographic replicability within Kenya ahead of second-life BESS scale-up.

Similar cases elsewhere

• Ampersand, operating in Rwanda and Kenya, runs an electric-motorcycle and rapid battery-swap network for commercial riders, with around 20,000 swaps per day across more than 6,000 e-motos. In December 2025, it opened its network to third-party manufacturers, moving towards more interoperable charging infrastructure.

• Spiro, active across Togo, Benin, Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda, is one of Africa’s largest electric-motorcycle companies, with more than 80,000 motorcycles and over 2,500 swap stations. It addresses battery end-of-life through circularity initiatives, including second-life use cases and recycling with ACE Green Recycling.

• In Asia, Gogoro pioneered standardised two-wheeler battery swapping in Taiwan, while second-life battery projects in India, such as a solar-integrated EV charging station near Bengaluru airport, show similar circular-economy logic outside Africa.

Sources

• Roam Electric official website: https://www.roam-electric.com/

• ENERGICA (EU Horizon 2020) — Kenya demonstrator: https://energica-h2020.eu/demonstration-sites/kenya-demonstrator/

• CleanTechnica — Roam Air launch (2022): https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/20/roam-launches-next-generation-electric-motorcycle-the-roam-air/