In 2019, I attended a cybersecurity conference hosted by Saudi Aramco — one of the world’s largest energy companies and one of the most significant players in the global oil economy.
The conversation was not what you might expect from an oil giant.
Aramco’s leadership spoke at length about the energy transition — not as a distant threat to their business model, but as a transformation they were actively preparing for. The world’s largest oil producer was thinking seriously about what comes after oil, and investing accordingly. When a company that pumps 9.2 million barrels of crude per day is allocating resources to post-carbon infrastructure, the signal is impossible to ignore.
Africa’s energy transition is not a philanthropic project or a climate talking point. It is an economic reality being accelerated by policy, investment, and the improving unit economics of electric vehicles. And the businesses that build the infrastructure now — before the mass-market inflection point arrives — are the ones that will define what that transition looks like on this continent.
The Numbers That Define the Moment
2026 is the year electric mobility in Africa becomes a strategic reality — not a projection, not potential, but measurable deployment at scale.
The data behind that shift:
Ethiopia banned non-electric private vehicle imports in 2024, backed by affordable hydropower. Morocco’s $5.6 billion battery gigafactory is opening in 2026, with EV sales climbing 80.4% in 2025. Kenya’s EV registrations surged 2,700% from 2022 to 2025.
Just 1% of new cars sold across Africa in 2025 were electric — but a new analysis published in Nature Energy finds that with solar off-grid charging, EVs could be cheaper to own than gas vehicles by 2040.
Battery electric vehicles would appear cost competitive by 2030 were it not for elevated financing costs — under a cash-purchase scenario, they would already present a financially viable option today.
These are not advocacy numbers. They are market signals — and they describe a transition that is accelerating faster than most African business leaders currently appreciate.
The Infrastructure Gap Is the Business Opportunity
Here is the contradiction that defines Africa’s EV moment in 2026: the vehicles are coming, but the charging infrastructure is not keeping pace.
Only 8 African countries currently meet high standards for grid reliability, and around 600 million people still do not have access to electricity. Urban hubs like Nairobi, Lagos, and Johannesburg benefit from relatively reliable power supplies and established charging networks. But the majority of the continent’s commercial corridors — the highways, logistics routes, and secondary cities where transport electrification matters most — have almost no public charging infrastructure.
The scarcity of public e-charging stations is one of the primary impediments obstructing the EV transition in Sub-Saharan Africa.
This is not a problem to complain about. It is a market to build.
The businesses, entrepreneurs, and investors who are deploying EV charging infrastructure in Africa today are not chasing a market that exists — they are creating the conditions for a market that is arriving. The economics of that position are compelling: first movers in infrastructure-dependent markets hold structural advantages that are extremely difficult for later entrants to overcome. You cannot outspend a charging network that is already installed across every major commercial corridor.
What the Charging Infrastructure Market Actually Looks Like
Afax Power — the manufacturer whose African distribution I hold — produces a range of EV charging solutions that span the full commercial spectrum.
The AC Wallbox starts from approximately 3,000,000 UGX ($820). It is designed for residential installation, hotel car parks, office complexes, and any commercial location that wants to offer EV charging as a service or amenity.
The DC Fast Charger and DC Max Charging Station reach up to 40,000,000 UGX ($11,000) at the commercial end — designed for petrol station operators, logistics hubs, transport operators, and any location that needs to charge multiple vehicles rapidly as part of a commercial operation.
Afax Power supports all major connector types — Type 1, Type 2, CCS1, CCS2, CHAdeMO, GB/T, and Tesla — covering every EV brand currently operating or entering African markets. This is not a niche product for a niche market. It is infrastructure designed for the full range of vehicles that are arriving on African roads right now.
The product range creates three distinct market entry points:
Residential and SME — the AC Wallbox at 3–8 million UGX. Hotels, apartment complexes, office parks, shopping centres. The business case is simple: EV drivers seek locations that offer charging. A hotel with a working charger attracts EV-driving guests. A shopping centre with chargers has longer dwell times.
Commercial and transport operators — the DC Compact and DC Fast Charger at 8–25 million UGX. Logistics companies, corporate fleets, boda boda operators transitioning to electric, taxi aggregators, bus operators. The operational case is even simpler: every kilometre driven on electricity costs less than every kilometre driven on petrol.
Infrastructure hubs — the DC Max Charging Station at 25–40 million UGX. Petrol stations, highway rest stops, border crossings, freight terminals. Petrol stations are strategically located along highways and urban corridors, have established grid connections, and are trusted service points for motorists. Integrating EV charging within these stations could significantly accelerate the development of a nationwide charging network.
Why the Gulf Understands This Before Africa Does
My experience at the Aramco cybersecurity conference illuminated something important about how the world’s largest energy economy thinks about the transition.
Gulf states are not waiting for the energy transition. They are funding it. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, the UAE’s net-zero commitments, and Bahrain’s economic diversification agenda all include explicit investment in clean energy infrastructure — not as climate compliance, but as strategic economic positioning.
The Gulf understands something that Africa’s business community has been slow to internalise: the energy transition creates infrastructure demand that is independent of ideology. Whether you believe in climate change or not, EVs are getting cheaper, governments are mandating them, and the businesses that own the charging infrastructure when mass adoption arrives will collect a toll on every journey made by every EV on the continent.
Aramco’s investment in cybersecurity for its energy infrastructure — the focus of the conference — reflects a deeper truth: the energy transition is a digital infrastructure transition as much as a physical one. EV charging stations are networked, data-generating, software-managed assets. Their security, reliability, and connectivity are as important as their power output. The Gulf is thinking at this level of sophistication about energy infrastructure. Africa needs to get there.
Uganda’s Specific Position
Uganda occupies an interesting position in Africa’s EV transition.
Spiro, a Dubai-based electric motorbike company, currently assembles its bikes in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda, and has over 60,000 bikes deployed across Africa with 1,500 battery swap stations operating. Uganda is already part of the assembly and deployment ecosystem for electric two-wheelers — the fastest-growing EV segment on the continent.
Uganda’s energy mix is predominantly hydropower — the Bujagali Dam and Karuma hydroelectric project between them provide over 900MW of renewable generation capacity. This matters because solar off-grid systems and grid-connected renewable power fundamentally change the economics of EV operation — charging from renewable sources is both cheaper and cleaner than charging from fossil-fuel grids.
The challenge Uganda faces is the one shared across East Africa: the gap between available renewable generation and reliable last-mile electricity distribution. A hotel in Kampala can reliably install and operate an AC Wallbox. A petrol station on the Kampala–Gulu highway faces a more complex infrastructure question.
But that gap is not static. Uganda’s National Development Plan III explicitly targets electricity access expansion. The Rural Electrification Agency is extending grid reach. And the economics of off-grid solar charging — pairing a solar array with a DC charger and battery storage — are improving every year.
Rwanda has shown what is possible with the right policy environment — offering tax exemptions, lower power rates, zero taxes on EV consumables, and rent-free property for charging stations, making it a focal point for East Africa’s EV transition. Uganda has the hydropower, the growing vehicle fleet, and the geographic position at the centre of East Africa’s road network to play a comparable role — if the policy environment catches up with the economic opportunity.
The Business Case for Installing Now
The question every business owner, property developer, and fleet operator in Uganda should be asking right now is not “when will EVs become mainstream?” It is “what position do I want to hold when they do?”
The EV adoption curve in Africa is accelerating. Kenya’s EV registrations surged 2,700% in three years. Ethiopia has banned petrol car imports entirely. Morocco’s battery factory will produce 20 gigawatt-hours of capacity annually from 2026. The policy direction across the continent is unambiguous.
First movers in charging infrastructure win in three ways:
Revenue from day one. Every EV driver who charges at your location pays a fee. The revenue model for charging infrastructure is not speculative — it is transactional, from the first vehicle charged.
Asset appreciation. A hotel, office complex, or petrol station with certified, branded EV charging infrastructure is worth more than one without. It attracts a growing segment of high-income, environmentally conscious customers who actively seek charging locations.
Network effects. Charging networks, like all infrastructure networks, become more valuable as they grow. The operator who builds the first reliable corridor of charging stations between Kampala and Mbarara, or Kampala and Gulu, owns a strategic asset that every fleet operator running that route will depend on.
The Afax Power range covers every tier of this opportunity — from the 3 million UGX AC Wallbox that any hotel or office complex can install this week, to the 40 million UGX DC Max station that anchors a commercial charging hub on a major transport corridor.
The Transition Is Happening. The Question Is Who Builds It.
Africa’s energy transition will not look like Europe’s. It will not replicate China’s. It will be shaped by Africa’s specific geography, energy mix, financing constraints, and the ingenuity of the businesses and entrepreneurs who build within those constraints.
Off-grid solar systems and battery-swapping solutions offer immediate relief — a compact solar setup can power a small EV for about 31 miles daily, and solutions like these are already operating at scale.
The infrastructure gap is real. But infrastructure gaps are not obstacles — they are market opportunities. The continent that built mobile banking before it built branch banking, that deployed mobile money before credit cards, that leapfrogged fixed-line internet for mobile broadband — that continent is entirely capable of building an EV charging network that works for its specific conditions, ahead of the timeline that conventional analysis projects.
The businesses building that network now are not ahead of the market. They are the market.
If you are interested in distributing, installing, or investing in EV charging infrastructure across Uganda and East Africa — from the 3M UGX AC Wallbox to the 40M UGX DC Max commercial station — get in touch to discuss the Afax Power product range and distribution partnership opportunities.
For broader digital strategy and market entry support across African and Gulf markets — book a Growth Intelligence Audit and walk away with a 90-day roadmap in five business days.
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