What will it take for Uganda’s Kiira EV to succeed where the Nyayo Pioneer failed?
The Kiira EV Smack built by students of Makerere University’s Department of Engineering on display at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi Kenya. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU
The business of making — and selling — cars ranks among the more complex industrial operations, with a capital-and labour-intensive value chain, a fiercely competitive market environment and an often tough regulatory climate to contend with.
This is the kind of market Uganda’s Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC) wants to enter. After successful tests of concepts designed by engineering students at Makerere University, KMC was set up as the platform through which the Kiira EV Smack hybrid car would get to commercial production. KMC’s vehicle production plant requires $350 million to set up and the projects’ promoters are confident the venture will put East Africa’s first locally-produced sedan on regional roads by mid 2018.
