Inside Yetu, the small Sh2.1m electric car President Ruto fell in love with

At first, it appeared like a joke. The President was driving around in what looked like a contraption from a different world at the Africa Climate Summit .

Interestingly, he seemed to be enjoying it. Kenyans took note and started talking about it, and suddenly there was interest in this fully electric car that is interestingly named Yetu. So, could this car, and the many other versions of fully electric vehicles, be the answer to Kenyans’ problem with fuel costs and pollution? With a liter of petrol now retailing at Sh211, could Yetu be the beginning of a motoring revolution in the country?

To get the answers to these, and many other questions, we went to drive it around.

The results are an eclectic mix of fun, utility, and a bit of dread.

At first impressions, it looks rather small. But Ms Joy Kalua, the 24-year-old Ivy League student who is behind this project, says looks can be deceiving.

It is a small car, a kadudu as Kenyans commonly call such small vehicles. What’s it like inside?

Kenyan motorists have shown a degree of averseness to this new technology, especially after some rather bad reviews of the earlier versions of hybrids, which are cars that run on both fuel and batteries. Another major drawback is the cost of acquisition as these cars tend to be priced much higher than their combustion counterparts. The base version of Yetu is priced at about Sh1.7 million while the bigger version is going for Sh2.1 million.

While these are prices for a brand-new car, some Kenyans might argue that, for those amounts, one could get much bigger, stronger more versatile second-hand Japanese units.

For now, the Yetu model is not in commercial production yet, but the proprietor says production will begin fully in the next few months, as she seeks to fly Kenya’s flag high with this made-in-Kenya electric vehicle.

 

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