Paul Waweru, a Kenyan high school physics teacher, has discovered an innovative way to reuse old laptop batteries and has founded a company called Ecomobilus to supply his laptop-battery-powered bikes. He collects the batteries from dealers in Nairobi, which costs him about KSH 50 ($0.50) per piece, and hauls them back to his workshop, where he sorts them to identify working cells.
Waweru then assembles them into a battery that can be used to power electric motorbikes. This was inspired by the challenges he faced with a bike he bought. He explained, “Nobody was selling electric bikes in Kenya, so I had to import one. It came with some batteries known as lead acid. Then, the batteries stopped working after a few months because of the technology. I was again grounded. I could no longer go to my workplace because my bike was no longer working. So, through my ingenuity and innovation, I could now source low-cost batteries, and that is how I ended up bumping into laptop batteries”.
He collects frames from old motorbikes, removes the engines and replaces them with a battery and a motor to propel the bike. They run on a 60V direct current. The batteries take hours to charge but can take 45 minutes if on a fast charger. A fully charged battery can travel a distance of up to 100 kilometres. He says his invention compares very well to traditional motorbikes. In his comments, He noted that “Ecomobilus bikes are more advantageous than other gasoline-powered bikes. Number one, because of the cost of maintenance. Ecomobilus bikes require zero maintenance because no mechanical parts need to be repaired often. We give it at least two years for services because the engines are no longer there; we are dealing with motors. Number two, the charging as compared to the fuelling is much, much (more) affordable. For a full charge, we are saying we are using less than $3, and for the same for the bodabodas (referring to motorbike taxis), they end up spending more than $7 a day to run the same bike. So, cost-wise, this would be more cost-effective, and number two, in terms of maintenance, this will be very, very easy to maintain.”