Kayoola Solar Bus – Uganda’s Sun-Powered City Bus

Uganda sits on the equator, with strong sun all year, so an electric bus with a solar roof makes a lot of sense. That was the idea of Kiira Motors, a state-owned company that grew out of an electric vehicle project at Makerere University. In February 2016 it presented the Kayoola Solar Bus, which many called Africa’s first solar bus.

The bus has 35 seats and nine solar panels on the roof. Two lithium-ion battery banks with a combined 70 kWh give a range of about 80 km per charge, and the solar panels add about 12 km more. With that range the Kayoola was designed for city routes rather than long trips. About 60% of the materials came from Uganda. The prototype made its first test drive on 31 January 2016 and was shown at a UN conference in Nairobi the same year.

Kiira Motors has since opened a vehicle plant in Jinja and builds the Kayoola EVS electric buses. Another solar bus on our site is Britain’s Big Lemon.

Technical data

Sources

• pv magazine: Uganda set to roll with solar PV bus
• CleanTechnica: Solar-powered electric bus from Uganda
• The Star (Kenya): Solar-powered bus wows UN conference
• Wikipedia: Kiira Motors Corporation