Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai has been fascinated with batteries since he was in primary school. As part of his High School Physics class he had to choose an elective course. He picked the renewable energy course and he has been hooked ever since. At university he continued to explore materials with applications in the energy space and ending up doing a PhD involving the study of radiation damage in High Temperature Gas Cooled Nuclear Reactors. He has since transitioned to work in the Solar and Storage industry and his love for batteries has driven him to obsess about electric vehicles.
May 29th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
We recently looked at how evCrowdRoute and GridCars are rolling out EV charging networks in South Africa. Now VAYA Africa, a Mauritius-registered Transportation as a Service (TaaS) company, has launched an electric vehicle service in South Africa’s northern neighbor, Zimbabwe
May 25th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
One of the main players in the South African EV space is GridCars. Established in 2009, GridCars has grown to become South Africa’s largest Electric Vehicle Charging Service Equipment (EVSE), Charging Station Infrastructure and Management Systems firm
May 23rd, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Meek Mill recently tweeted the he is looking to buy some Teslas — er, "all" Teslas
May 20th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
We all have to do a whole lot better to address climate change and make the world a better place [&hellip
May 13th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Mobility For Africa (MFA) has just completed the first of a two-part pilot phase which we covered here recently. MFA has now started the second phase of the pilot. MFA tested several models which included exploring agricultural produce transport services as well as general taxi services. It also used the pilot to measure the financial viability of the project as well as identifying solutions for different business models
May 11th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
MFA is a startup founded by Australian Shantha Bloeman and is currently piloting electric three-wheelers in the rural Wedza district of Zimbabwe. MFA’s vision is to “bring solar powered electric transport solutions to women and their families that are affordable, efficient and adapted to peri urban and rural areas in Africa.”
May 5th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
South Africa’s EV public charging network is growing all the time, and thanks to Shaun and his partners, evCrowdRoute is one of the firms making this happen. CleanTechnica caught up with Shaun Maidment to discuss this
April 27th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
BMW South Africa has been at the forefront of promoting electric mobility in South Africa. The BMW i3 has been the only electric model that has been consistently available in South Africa since 2015, hence it is tops of the all-time sales charts with 405 units sold since
April 21st, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Stellenbosch-based MellowVans seeks to help firms across the globe in this space in their quest to unlock operational efficiencies and cost savings by providing them with low cost and emission-free transport. MellowVans develops, manufactures, and leases electric three-wheeler cargo vans that appear to hit the sweet spot of the delivery vehicle market
April 16th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
The home delivery market worldwide has been given a boost as many nations have implemented a range of movement restrictions ranging from issuing strong social distancing guidelines to stay-at-home orders to full lockdowns. It appears the social distancing practices will also give a much needed boost to firms using e-bikes in the last-mile/home delivery industry
April 10th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
South Africa’s uYilo Electric Mobility Program, a multi-stakeholder, collaborative program focused on enabling, facilitating, and mobilizing electric mobility in South Africa, has just released its State of Electric Vehicles in South Africa Report. According to the report, 1,119 plugin electric vehicles had been sold in South Africa by the end of 2019. It’s interesting to see that the sales were practically evenly split between battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plugin hybrids (PHEVs). 545 (49%) of these were BEVs and 574 (51%) were PHEVs. These numbers give an interesting look in to the state of electric vehicles in South Africa even though they are low compared to other markets with mature EV industries such as Europe, North America, and China
April 7th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Tesla really got us rethinking the whole idea of what a pickup truck is when the company shocked the world at the Cybertruck launch event. It's a radical shift that's totally different from the standard pickup truck look and performance expectations that people had been accustomed to. This shock slowly evolved into acceptance, and later absolute admiration. It appears the Cybertruck has since gone on to register over half a million reservations
April 7th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Namibian e-bike startup ebikes4africa has been on a steady growth path over the past 5 years. The business model rightly focused on customer segments characterized by a high utilization rate of vehicles. The startup targeted entrepreneurs in the food vending industry, pharmacies that regularly make delivery runs, and those entrepreneurs using bikes as taxis. They also found off takers in the wildlife protection industry and more prominently in the tourism industry where e-fatbike tours offer an eco-tourism experience
April 3rd, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Hybrid vehicles have come a long way since they went mainstream with the very successful Toyota Prius. Now in its fourth generation, featuring an 8.8 kWh battery, the Prius Prime/Plug-In Hybrid is good for an all-electric range of about 40 km
March 23rd, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Elon Musk’s announcement early last year that Tesla was going to close its stores and shift to all online sales was met with mixed reactions with most people being shocked to hear about the change
March 20th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
A lot of work over the years has gone into researching, developing, trialing, promoting, and scaling efficient transit systems such as shared mobility platforms. The explosion of online shopping has also led to growth of the on-demand delivery economy. These aggregation platforms are a great enabler for electric vehicles whose business case on a total cost of ownership basis really stands out for high utilization vehicles
March 12th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
A lot has been written about traditional automakers trying very hard to delay the mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), as they still have massive investments made in the internal combustion engine (ICE) ecosystem to recoup
February 21st, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Blue Nova Energy, a member of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Listed Reunert Group, looks to be ramping up nicely and has just launched the MegaBoy
February 18th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
According to the Motorcycle Assemblers Association of Kenya, there are currently about 600,000 commercial motorcycles in Kenya. Motorcycle taxis, known as Boda Bodas, are extremely popular, as commuters use them to whiz through Nairobi’s infamous traffic. Boba Bobas are also widely used in Kenya’s coastal resort towns, like Malindi, Watamu, Kilifi, Diani, the city of Mombasa, Rift Valley towns like Nakuru, and the inland port city Kisumu in Western Kenya
February 11th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
A lot of the OEMs have not expressed any interest in bringing EVs to the rest of Africa anytime soon. With the majority of them struggling to meet demand in their home and traditional markets, it doesn’t look like Africa will be a priority anytime soon
February 9th, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
The battery storage market in South Africa is expected to grow significantly going forward as companies and homes look to cushion themselves from ongoing electricity blackouts. Eskom, the stated-owned utility company, has been battling to keep the lights on during peak demand hours. Electricity blackouts are expected for at least another 18 months according to some reports
February 2nd, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Slowly but surely, we are getting there. We recently shared Kenyan startup GreenSpoon’s move to embrace electric delivery vans and ABInBev’s South African Breweries’ addition of the Mitsubishi Fuso eCanter to its fleet. Well, now, on our travels to Botswana, we came across MyFoodness, which has been using electric scooters on its delivery routes since
January 22nd, 2020 | by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai
Infinite Foods, a subsidiary of Botswana-based Accite Holdings, plans to tackle Africa’s nutrition problem in a more sustainable way by promoting plant-based food products across Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa’s expanding population and development will see many move into middle income status and with it increase their meat and dairy intake. Increased meat and dairy intake on a global scale will put more strain on the Earth’s resources which will struggle to sustain the projected surge in demand for red meat and milk using an animal-based system, which is inefficient
