To promote a clean environment, a firm AaraGo Limited has introduced into the market electric motorbikes manufactured by a Taiwan firm.
The event, held at the Alliance Francaise Ikoyi, Lagos, was attended by members of the business community of both countries.
Aarago Limited co-founder/Chief Executive Officer, Philip Handschin, said the electric bikes will boost mobility in the country, starting from Lagos.
Stating that the bikes are durable, efficient and of good quality, the CEO added that they are easy to maintain and do not use fuel.
Already, he announced, a swap station had been established in lkoyi, Lagos batteries for the two-wheel bikes could be charged, adding that plans were afoot to establish 10 next year.
“We are doing everything to make the electrification of mobility a reality. “So, what is the Aarago solution? It is five-fold: We start with the state-of-the-art electric bikes. But, most importantly, is the smart battery at the core of the solution. The battery has extremely high energy density, so it’s lightweight, but it has a long range.
“The whole system has to be very efficient, so that we can power it with solar. If you don’t have an efficient solution, you need more energy. More energy means you need a diesel generator or grid. You can’t do it with solar. So the battery and the bikes have to be very efficient. Otherwise, it’s not working.
“Once you have the batteries, then you need to solve the problem of range anxiety for the people, so that they know I can just go about my day and I don’t have to worry about charging or parking somewhere for four hours. People, especially delivery guys, work from 8 am till 8pm. They can’t just stop for four hours to recharge their batteries. Our swapping station, you can fill up the bike in about 30 seconds. So you just arrive, you swap it out and you keep going.
“And thanks to our solar partner Pirano, our swapping stations will be fully solar powered. So, we are completely off the grid. Because many people at the beginning asked us, like, why do you want to bring EVs to Nigeria? There’s no grid, there’s no power. And we said yes, but don’t worry, we will solve that. And because of the efficiency and because Nigeria is blessed with so much sunshine, we can actually pull it off with sustainable energy.
“And last but not least, the second life of batteries. As we said, the circular economy, we don’t want to introduce another problem. We don’t want to introduce battery waste. So that’s why we will have a second life programme for the batteries, where we install them in households of companies in conjunction, again, with a solar system.”
Aarago co-founder, Mr Olumide Adeosun, who spoke on the theme of the event, “Electrify Lagos”, said their objective “is to drive a greener tomorrow with sustainable two-wheeler mobility.
“Really, we’re trying to accelerate the ignition of a movement towards cleaner, greener mobility,” he added.
He noted that they were making history with the establishment of the first solar-powered battery-as-a-service swap stations in Africa, probably in the world.
Source:The Nation
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