Despite the harmful effects of carbon emissions on the environment, automobiles, heavily dependent on petrol engines, including bikes, and other heavy-duty vehicles still rule most roads in Nigerian and across Africa.
While campaign against carbon emission is growing around the world, an African automobile start-up, desperate to promote green energy transportation, is taking the bull by the horn.
Tolu Williams, founder of Savenhart Technology Limited is committed to providing renewale energy solutions with the provision of electric bikes specifically made for the Nigerian terrain.
The company has been in the business of selling electric bikes for over five years and has mastered the stock process of what is suitable for the Nigerian market, BusinessDay learnt.
Confident of his products, Williams said after-sales services can be a nightmare if they offered non-durable products.
The bikes come in different sizes and forms as observed at the Lekki store. Williams said each bike in the store is a curation of a lot of products that have been refined over the years.
“One of these bikes,” he said, pointing to a bike on display, “from the tires to the suspension, to the battery, to the electric motor, are specifically curated for an African market because most of them are usually for Europe and Asia.”
A major challenge in the adoption of electric automobiles is power, especially in a country like Nigeria with endless power cuts. This results in scepticism among Nigerians about the success of such ventures.
But Savenhart Technology seems to have provided a solution with its ultra-fast siltech chargers and swappable batteries. The battery technology has been adopted to help cut down the challenge of low battery.
While it normally takes about six to eight hours to charge an electric bike to full capacity, with the ultra-fast chargers, the charging time is cut down to three to four hours.
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“You don’t have to ride your bike until it is flat, everywhere you go you can top up. As long as you have access to charge your mobile phone, you can charge your bike,” he said.
He added that the batteries are designed in a portable way to ease mobility, noting that can be charged on an inverter, on big and small generator sets.
One of the benefits of renewable energy is that it eradicates the production greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and reduces some types of air pollution.
Savenhart is contributing to the preservation of the ecosystem with environmental-friendly products. The technology of E-mobility drastically reduces carbon emissions, and the bikes are silent too, thereby reducing noise pollution.
Williams believes in the protection of the environment. According to him, the ecosystem was here before humans and it will be here many years after.
“So, we will be doing a lot of good to future generations by preserving it,” he asserts.
On the survival of businesses in Nigeria, Williams suggested that focus and the ability to carry out the right feasibility studies on the market, as well as being not too quick to invest are basic requirements among others.
In addition, he said as brilliant as an idea might seem for investment purposes, entrepreneurs must first look at it from a holistic point of view and its relevance to the kind of business they are into.
Some businesses like his experienced a huge spike in sales despite the Covid 19 pandemic simply because they had a structure that fit the demands of the season.
Speaking on the future of E-mobility in Africa, he said the company is looking to expand to a 100 distribution outlets across Africa, noting that they intend to scale up to 10 outlets from the already existing five in Lagos, by the end of the year.
“Hopefully all these products will be available to all Africans in the nearest future.” Williams said.
