ARC Ride, a motorcycle company from Kenya, has introduced an electric delivery bike for South Africa priced from 22,500 South African Rand. The company is betting that couriers who spend about 27 Rands per liter on gasoline will prefer to pay for battery replacement.
The Panther model was unveiled in Cape Town this month. Under the 'battery as a service' model, drivers exchange a fully discharged battery for a charged one at an ARC hub or an automated swap station. A full swap costs 50 Rands and provides a range of up to 110 km; partial swaps are charged proportionally.
ARC Ride claims that a 125cc gasoline motorcycle consumes over 59 Rands of fuel per 100 km at a price of about 27 Rands per liter, whereas the Panther consumes approximately 45.45 Rands per 100 km, which is 23% less. This comparison remains valid inland, where after the adjustment on September 2nd, the price of AI-95 gasoline was 26.92 Rands per liter. At the current coastal price of 26.05 Rands per liter, the savings decrease to approximately 20%.
The cost gap may widen soon. Data from the Central Energy Fund (CEF) dated September 28th indicated a rise in the price of AI-95 by approximately 3.06 Rands per liter by October 7th, which would raise the domestic price to approximately 29.98 Rands per liter. According to ARC Ride's calculations, in that case, battery replacement would be about 30% cheaper than using gasoline.
In an ARC Ride press release, drivers were promised 'up to 20% more net income,' but the details described savings on fuel and maintenance of 'up to 20% of the driver's total weekly operating expenses.' When TechCentral requested clarification regarding this discrepancy, ARC Ride representative Justus Visagi stated that this figure reflects a reduction in weekly operating costs by 20%, not an increase in earnings by 20%, and that the release would be corrected. He added that 'how much it increases net income depends on how much the driver earns.'
Visagi clarified that this estimate, mentioned in the release as being based on 'proprietary data from the ARC Ride fleet operations,' 'was modeled based on its operations in other African markets, not measured on South African fleets.'