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Ampersand

Energy

Rwanda

Creating an eMobility revolution in Africa

If you’ve been to many of Africa’s big cities, you’ll have seen the familiar sight of ‘boda boda’ delivery motorbikes weaving through the traffic. These petrol two-wheelers use on average one litre of petrol for every 42 kilometres of range, all while generating immense air pollution. In Rwanda’s capital city, a group of entrepreneurs decided to make a difference.

Ampersand has pioneered the use of electric motorcycles in Kigali. They set out with a prototype that was able to achieve about 72 kilometres on 3kWh of energy, allowing them to electrify the motorbike fleet while saving their drivers money. Using technology adapted for the local market and the right business model to achieve scale, their vehicles deliver superior driving performance, emit 75% less carbon than petrol motorcycles with zero tailpipe emissions, and put over $500 a year back into drivers' pockets.

The challenge

A barrier to adoption was charging batteries – the drivers couldn’t afford the downtime of waiting to charge their batteries. The company came up with the idea of a swap station, where drivers could swap flat batteries for a fully charged one. They opened their first swap station in 2019, with 20 drivers testing the swap mechanism. The response was positive – the drivers loved it.

Renting a charged battery from Ampersand saves drivers over $500 per year. Each battery delivers around 60-90 km of range and requires swapping out less often than drivers commonly refuel with petrol. But in order to have batteries available for swapping, the team needed a solution to track where the batteries were at all times, and what condition they were in. Initially, they used a free online product to track the battery packs and swap station logistics, but as the business grew from an initial 20 drivers to the current 800+ vehicles in Kigali and Nairobi, with more than 20 swap stations in service, the Ampersand team realized that they needed a much more detailed understanding of where the assets and batteries were.

The solution

The team needed a cloud solution provider that was flexible and adaptive enough to take on its workloads. The simplicity of Microsoft Azure was key in making this decision, and through Microsoft for Startups’ programs, they were able to move fast without having to worry about scaling up the product over time. They built a bespoke platform, AmperOps, which runs on Azure. The platform collects over 15,000 data points and runs multiple cashless transactions every second.

The AmperOps agile system allows for seamless management of battery packs with customisable parameters such as state of health analysis and geofenced alarms. Customisable insights allow the Ampersand team to intimately understand the performance of each swap station, driver and battery, and respond in real-time. The system also provides smart maintenance systems that automatically alert the team to required battery or vehicle repairs before breakdowns happen.

“The Microsoft team and their support in setting up our cloud infrastructure has been a critical part of our growth story. Being based in sub-Sarahan Africa, we needed a team who has staff on the ground, and who could relate to our challenges. Microsoft was able to come into our offices and see what we were doing, creating an instant rapport. The support has been phenomenal,” says Joshua Whale, CEO at Ampersand.

Ampersand has been able to deliver transport to millions through its electric motorcycles while enabling drivers to seamlessly make the switch from petrol to electric motorbikes. Ampersand drivers already cover over 1.3 million kilometres every month. That’s like driving the length of Africa every day, four times over. Ampersand’s specially engineered motorcycles are designed for local conditions, ride better and cost less to buy and operate. The company’s team of developers and engineers assemble Ampersand motorcycles and batteries on site.

Now drivers are saving hundreds of dollars a year without any harmful emissions. And the company has big plans for the future. “Our goal is for all motorcycles in Rwanda to be electrified by 2027, and all of East Africa by 2030,” says Whale.