EMOBILITY INTERVIEW: “Impacting the climate and urban air quality through corporate fleets”

Exclusive interview with Henry Kamau, a director at VBD Automotive Technologies, based in Nairobi, Kenya, and a member of the advisory board for Africa’s Green Economy Summit, taking place in February 2024 in Cape Town. 

Let’s start with some background on you and how VBD Automotive Technologies started.

Hello, my name is Henry Kamau. I’m a director at VBD automotive technologies, based in Nairobi, Kenya. My background has been in vehicle technology. I was trained as a vehicle design engineer at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, as well as at Fachhochschule Hamburg in Germany, on vehicle design and vehicle engineering. I also worked in R&D at the Rover Group in the UK, and then I moved back to Kenya and worked for the major vehicle assemblers. There was a KPM that assembled Leyland, Land Rover and Mercedes.  

Later, I moved on to GM-Isuzu, where we assembled Isuzu vehicles and a couple of GM vehicles. However, that later turned into Isuzu. While working at GM, we also toured a lot of the assembly plants in Africa, including the Isuzu plants in Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) in South Africa. The bus bodybuilding plants, I think Bismarck in Johannesburg, and we also visited plants in 6th of October City in Egypt. So, we have a very wide knowledge of the manufacturing aspect of vehicles on the continent. 

When I left GM in 2006, my colleague Nyaga Kebuchi and I set up VBD Automotive Technologies. Initially, VBD Automotive Technologies was involved in cleaner vehicles and cleaner fuels. We worked closely with UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) on cleaning fuels, not just in Kenya but Africa-wide, getting lead out of petrol and the sulphur out of diesel, so the emission control systems on these vehicles would work for cleaner emissions. And then later on that shifted to cleaner vehicles where higher efficiency was demanded. We did some work with the GFEI (Global Fuel Economy Initiative) on that as well. And finally, we’re here now working on emobility. 

Any specific projects that you are working on that you are particularly excited about? How will this change people’s lives?

We’re doing quite a lot of things that are very exciting. We happen to look for innovative ways to bring emobility to the continent. VBD Automotive Technologies has partnered with the venture capital fund, VAI Capital based in Switzerland, and our focus is to work with corporate fleets and get them to transition to emobility. The only way we’ll have an impact on the climate as well as urban air quality is in through corporate fleets. They tend to be the largest fleets on the continent. Personal vehicles are also considered as part of this, but the real impact comes with the transition of fleets to emobility.

What are the main challenges in your view?

The biggest challenges on bringing emobility to the continent are the capital costs. Electric vehicles tend to be more expensive than their ICE counterparts, so we have to be innovative in the approach. There are many schemes that we’re looking at, such as battery swaps, where the owner of the motorcycle only pays for the motorcycle without the battery and then leases the battery. And they are able to swap the battery. In Africa, motorcycle taxis are a very big industry, and there’s quite a lot of potential here for the switch to emobility. They are also a very big contributor to poor urban air quality and health. 

So, capital cost is a very big factor on vehicles and buses as well, and we are looking at innovative ways to charge either per kilometre used for leasing of the battery or per kilowatt hour. So, different models are being experimented with and we’ll soon know which works best. But this has made motorcycles and buses really competitive with their petrol and diesel counterparts as the capital cost for acquiring these vehicles is now matched. 

We also look at the total lifecycle cost of these units. That’s where the real benefit is, where you will have quite substantial savings over the total cost of the life of the vehicle, what we call the total cost of ownership. And I think this will unlock the doors for emobility on the continent. 

Where in Africa are you looking for future opportunities?

Initially, we started our work in Kenya, that’s where most of the initiatives have been, but we’re really looking towards the East African Community to expand within the region. And then we’ll also look at West Africa, as well as southern Africa to expand on the initiatives that we see work here, bringing a lower entry cost to emobility for all users. 

What keeps you excited about this industry?

We’re very excited about the opportunities for youth employment, because these are new technologies. So there are a lot of opportunities as Africa has a very big problem with unemployed youth. Across the continent, we have graduates who cannot find jobs. 

There are also big economic benefits for African countries where fuel tends to be the highest commodity import item. And switching to electric mobility, where most of the energy is resourced within the country would mean a very big saving on the country’s economy and reduce the expenditure on foreign exchange. 

There will also be improved urban air quality, which will result in improved health as well of urban populations. So, those are very big positives that we need to keep in mind. 

You are a member of the advisory board of Africa’s Green Economy Summit. How important is such an event for the continent in your view?

Emobility is capital-intensive, as I have mentioned, And what needs to be considered is the entire ecosystem around emobility, the charging infrastructure and the opportunities for self-fuelling through private installations of solar panels, that can cut down operational costs. 

There are many opportunities for lowering operational costs and increasing returns for many corporate operations. So this is the main reason that we really also bring this new technology to the continent to improve on productivity.

What will be your message at the upcoming event?

Perhaps the biggest message would be for the naysayers on the continent who feel that emobility isn’t the way for the continent to go. They must remember that Africa has no vested interest in thermal driveline technologies, as we don’t manufacture engines or gearboxes. And these items are easily replaced by electric motors and batteries and battery management units. 

So there will be no lost jobs in the transition to electric mobility. So, this is something that should be seen as a positive for the continent.

Anything you would like to add?

I think perhaps the only thing I’d like to add is the benefit of technology transfer, that would be really big for this continent, particularly if we’re able to manufacture electric vehicles on the continent as well as manufacture batteries. As you know, most of the resources for the global batteries are found on the continent, and it would be good if we’re able to add value to these resources, before exporting it, so that the wealth is retained on the continent.