Programmes
How electric and shared transport crosses from novelty to default, and what it does to the livelihoods built on the vehicles it replaces.
Rider and operator economics starts from the daily cash-flow arithmetic of the people doing the work. A boda-boda rider, a matatu operator, a scheduled-shuttle driver: what does the vehicle earn today, net of fuel or charging, financing and maintenance, and how many hours of the day is it certain to be earning at all. The Lab studies the load factor, the fare, and the point at which a switch from petrol to electric stops being a policy question and becomes a decision the rider makes for themselves.
Batteries, charging and swap infrastructure is the physical system that decides whether the switch holds. Home charging, swap networks, standards and after-sales all sit inside a single question about make-or-buy and where the risk parks overnight. The Lab looks at how a swap network's density, uptime and pricing behave once a fleet is depending on it, who sets the standard, and who is included in the resulting network.
The vehicle works. Whether a rider adopts turns on the daily economics of their route, the reliability of charging, and financing that removes the battery, the costliest part, from the purchase.
The Lab documents what actually carries a rider across, and, just as valuable to a partner, who gets left behind when financing or home charging is out of reach. That distributional read is the insight a sales figure hides. Our mobility case study traces one manufacturer's crossing in Nairobi.
How platforms are financing charging infrastructure by owning the demand.
Read →Who bears the affordability distance in a petrol-dominated market.
Read →A Lagos operator halved fares by removing spontaneity, not by replacing the vehicle.
Read →The make-or-buy decision inside a swap network, and what it does to the balance sheet.
Read →The governance of Kenya's open battery-swap network, and who is not in the room.
Read →When the driver comes out of the taxi, a thousand independent risks become one repeated.
Read →For the full series across the transitions we study, see Articles.
If you are pricing, financing, or standard-setting the shift to electric and shared transport, tell us the decision you are facing.
