Spiro to grow Nigeria swap stations 10x in 3 months

From the newsletter

Electric motorcycle company Spiro has announced a plan to increase the number of its battery swapping stations in Nigeria tenfold in three months. Nigeria is one of the eight markets in which Spiro operates in Africa. The company, which has been expanding aggressively across the continent, currently has 100 swapping stations in the West African country. 

• Spiro, which first began operations in Benin and Togo in 2022, has sold more than 35,000 electric motorcycles and built more than 1,100 battery swapping stations, making it Africa’s largest electric two-wheeler company.  

• A lack of swapping stations has been a roadblock for electric motorcycle adoption. Companies are racing to scale their station network, but inability to raise sufficient capital has remained an issue. 

More details

• Rahul Gaur, Spiro’s Director for West Africa, said the company wants swapping stations to function as a nationwide alternative to fuel stations. “We have 64 active substations in Lagos. By the end of this year, we are targeting 1,000, and by next year 2,000 across the country,” Mr Gaur said. 

• Spiro sells four main electric motorcycle models, namely the Ekon, Ekon 450M2, Alpha+ and the limited-edition Davido Collectible. The company has deployed the Battery-as-a-Service (Baas) model across its markets through which it retains ownership of the battery, which is leased to the customer.

• It began operations in Nigeria in July 2024 and has delivered about 3,500 motorcycles so far. The company says it has a backlog of 20,000 orders, with demand for electric motorcycles far outstripping what the company can supply, highlighting the market opportunity in the West African country.

• The company has since then emerged as one of Nigeria’s top electric motorcycle companies despite stiff competition from new entrants like Transsion-owned TankVolt. With a population of more than 230 million people, Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest markets. EV sales, mainly electric bikes, tricycles and cars, are growing rapidly. 

• Nigeria has made major strides in recent years to grow EV uptake. The most recent major move was VAT exemption for EVs, which came into effect in January 2024, following a government directive. The exemption applies to all EVs, including motorcycles, cars, and buses, as well as their components and charging infrastructure. 

• EV companies have raised significant money to increase charging and swapping networks. This month, South Africa’s Zero Carbon Charge raised $5.6 million from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to build off-grid solar charging stations. Kenya’s ARC Ride has also raised $10 million in debt from Mirova to expand its battery swapping network. These capital raises will help the continent plug the charging gap. 

Our take

• Spiro's ambitious goal of expanding its swapping stations from 100 to 1,000 in three months will require significant capital. Inability to raise sufficient capital is a major bottleneck for the industry as a whole to meet high demand. 

• The demand for motorcycles is there, but Spiro’s ability to capitalize on it is limited by its current production output. Scaling up manufacturing will be critical to fulfilling existing orders and meeting future demand.

• The lack of universal standards for battery design, size, and connection points across different manufacturers limit customers to swapping stations operated by a single brand. However, the emergence of brand-agnostic battery swapping stations will allow EVs from different manufacturers to exchange depleted batteries for fully charged, standardized battery packs in a few minutes.