# Field Note 02 — The five questions European investors ask me about e-mobility in East Africa

> From the European Economic Congress in Katowice to the Polish–Kenyan business forums, the same five questions come up every time. Here are my answers, with the numbers I use on stage.

_Author: Gregory Radek, Co-Founder & CTO — East Africa's leading EV 2W/3W expert (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregradek/) · Source: MargTor Ltd. — https://margtor.africa/knowledge/notes/field-note-02-investor-questions · Updated 2026-06-05 · License CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) · Attribution: MargTor Ltd., https://margtor.africa_

## The room is always the same

Whether it is a panel at the European Economic Congress or a Polish–Kenyan business forum, the audience is European capital trying to understand an African operating model. The questions are good ones. These are the five I hear most, and how I answer them.

## 1. "Is there enough electricity?"

Not from the grid, not everywhere — and that is the point. Our swap hubs are **solar-first** with LFP storage and a generator failsafe. A hub cycles about 24 packs a day from its own roof, sells the surplus through a 230 V socket and keeps running when the grid does not. Electricity is not the constraint; **where you put the hub** is.

## 2. "Who pays for the battery?"

Nobody buys it. The battery stays with the operator and the rider pays per swap — **Battery-as-a-Service**, about 425 KES per bike per day in our Kenyan model. The rider's bike costs less than a petrol one, the operator earns an annuity on the pack, and the battery risk sits with the people who have the data to manage it.

## 3. "How do you collect from a rider with no bank account?"

Through the thing he cannot work without. Every vehicle carries IoT integrated with the controller: GPS, state of charge, tamper events, remote speed-limit and disable. Repayment runs on M-Pesa or Airtel Money, reconciled through bank APIs. Portfolios secured this way report **collection rates around 90%**. The vehicle is the credit file.

## 4. "What about duties and customs?"

Assemble inside a **special economic zone**. The Polish SEZ in Kenya — the only one in the country dedicated to one nation's investors — lets components enter duty-free and finished vehicles leave for Tanzania and DR Congo without Kenyan duty or VAT. For a fleet buyer that is roughly a quarter off the landed cost, and for a Polish exporter it is the structure BGK and KUKE recognise.

## 5. "Who runs it after you leave?"

The people who were always going to: SACCOs, cooperatives, local technicians we train. MargTor's contracts are **long-term engagements** — equity or retainer over three years or more — precisely because a fleet that only works while the foreign engineer is on site is not a fleet, it is a demo.

## The question I wish they asked

"What does a rider save?" In our model about **38% of daily operating cost**, roughly 500 KES a day at 150 km and 180 KES per litre. Everything above — the hub, the battery, the telematics, the zone — exists to protect that number. If it holds, the lender gets paid, the operator scales and the investor gets a return. If it does not, no structure saves the project.

*Gregory Radek is Co-Founder & CTO of MargTor Ltd. and East Africa's leading industry expert on electric two- and three-wheelers. Run your own numbers with the TCO calculator on margtor.africa.*