BYD & Ampersand to Collaborate on Electric Motorcycles in Africa

Ampersand will purchase BYD’s high-tech battery cells to build around 40,000 electric motorcycles by the end of 2026, with the long-term goal of electrifying a large portion of Africa’s 30 million commercial motorcycles.

In an exciting development toward electricity in one of the most prominent sectors in the African transport landscape, one of the world’s largest electric vehicle and battery manufacturing firms, BYD, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Ampersand to collaborate in the electric motorcycle sector. Ampersand is one of Africa’s leading EV energy tech company, cutting carbon emissions & driving clean economic prosperity by making its EV energy technology and infrastructure accessible to the mass market. BYD is well known for its electric vehicles, from small hatchbacks to large double-decker buses, as well as its revolutionary “Blade” battery.

This ground-breaking development will see electric motorbike development and deployment in Africa get a significant boost as global high-tech company BYD and Africa’s leading EV energy tech company Ampersand collaborate on the decarbonisation of Africa’s commercial motorbike transport system. As its primary supplier, Ampersand will purchase BYD’s high-tech battery cells to build around 40,000 electric motorcycles by the end of 2026, with the long-term goal of electrifying a large portion of Africa’s 30 million commercial motorbikes. BYD’s cutting edge lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cells have a long lifespan, an excellent safety record, and are affordable for everyday users, making them ideal for mass-market electrification.

Motorcycles are a really big deal in a lot of African countries, with most of them deployed as taxis. With almost 99% of them still being internal combustion engine motorcycles, there is a huge opportunity and a large addressable market for electrification. The move towards electric vehicles in Africa, especially in this electric motorcycle sector, has mainly been driven from the private sector by small startup companies. Most of the developments have been concentrated along what is now known as the “boda belt” of countries on the African map, where motorcycle taxis are prominent. This belt stretches from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal. There is also significant activity in North African countries such as Morocco, where smaller scooters are used mainly for personal transportation, unlike in East Africa and West Africa, where most of the activity is for commercial transport purposes.

At the same time as decarbonising transport, electric two-wheelers clean up the air and save drivers on average of 45% a year on fuel and maintenance, improving lives and livelihoods. They also drive entrepreneurship and social mobility. Ampersand is one of the leading firms in Africa’s electric motorcycle ecosystem. Ampersand says its current fleet of 3,000 zero-emission electric motorcycles cost less to run, deliver life-changing savings for its customers, clean up air quality, and improve people’s health. The company is further scaling its climate-led innovation and customer-centric services to more businesses and markets. Ampersand is helping to reshape how Africa moves!

The partnership with BYD will enable Ampersand to rapidly scale its electric fleet and its charging infrastructure, which is already the largest in Rwanda and Kenya. This continued scaling will allow Ampersand to meet increasing demand for commercial motorcycles across Africa as its cities expand and riders increase, providing a sustainable solution to support the continent’s economic growth.