The company making solar-power-functional cars was founded in 2021. It began by making three-wheeled cargo vehicles, but it has recently moved to four-wheeled models — such as the B-Van. “The solar cells provide us with more than 50 percent of our needs,” says Boubaker Siala, founder and CEO of Bako Motors. “For example, with the B-Van, for commercial use, you can have free energy for about 50 kilometres (31 miles) per day / 17,000 kilometres (10,563 miles) per year. It’s huge.”
The company found that the B-Van can carry up to 882 pounds of goods and has a range of 62 to 186 miles. The solar-car starts at about 24,990 Tunisian dinars (roughly US $8,500). Siala also notes that e-mobility trends in Africa are highly localized. “Different African countries have different modes of transport,” he said, citing how in South Africa four-wheel passenger vehicles dominate, whereas in Kenya motorbikes lead. That means the market can support many players, especially if local manufacturing addresses infrastructure challenges such as poor road quality.
By building locally, the vehicles “suit the mobility needs of the continent,” Siala says, as well as boosting the economy and creating jobs. Bako Motors is a small business but growing: it has recently started building a second, larger factory that is expected to manufacture around 8,000 more vehicles per year for Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The company hopes to capture 5 to 10 percent of this market. Over the next five to ten years, Siala believes the peak of electric mobility usage will arrive. “We have to prepare ourselves for this transition and offer affordable and good products for the African citizen,” he adds.
This emerging solar-EV startup is a reminder that the transport solutions of tomorrow might look very different but have the potential to start today.
