According to TechGH24.com, the company already assembles electric motorbikes and tricycles in Ghana, which are patronized heavily by delivery service companies.
Mr. Appiah also noted that 90 percent of engineers at Solar Taxi are women, they design the motorbike and tricycle models, then the company import the components and assemble them at the company’s plants in Accra and Kumasi.
This comes at a time when Ghana government, through the energy ministry, is leading the charge to ensure that is ready to welcome electric vehicles into the transportation system. The energy ministry and its stakeholders recently held the maiden EV conference in Ghana to set the tone for an EV industry in Ghana.
The Solar Taxi boss noted that electric vehicles are fast becoming the new normal and the company wants to ensure that Ghanaians and Africans at home are not left far behind; so, they have designed schemes that would enable Ghanaians to easily buy, lease or rent electric vehicles. According to him, the company runs outright sale, lease to own, and long-term rental schemes for people who want to own and or rent electric vehicles.
Jorge Appiah also said the prices of their cars range from GH¢90,000 to GH¢300,000 depending on what the customer wants, adding that it makes better economic sense to buy a brand-new EV than to buy an imported home-used second hand fuel/diesel car that will cost a lot of fuel to run.
“An overwhelming majority of our clients choose EV over petrol/diesel cars based on the economics – because if you buy an electric vehicle today, you will be saving up to 90 percent of what you spend on fuel every month. So if you spend GH¢1,000 on fuel every month, EV will save you GH¢900 and you would spend only GH¢100 a month to run the car,” he told TechGh24.com in an interview.