eWaka Mobility: e-bikes, training, and software for last‑mile delivery

Electric bikes in Nairobi aren’t just a clean-tech curiosity. They’re a bet that the most expensive part of delivery — the “last mile” to a customer’s door — can be made cheaper, more reliable, and easier to scale in dense cities. In a short BBC video feature, a Kenyan start-up called eWaka Mobility is presented as a company trying to package that bet into a product-plus-service that can sell to both individual riders and large fleets.

The interesting part isn’t simply that e-bikes exist. It’s what has to be true — in batteries, operations, training, and software — for an e-bike fleet to work day after day in real traffic.

Why “last mile” delivery is where the economics get brutal

Logistics looks like a problem of moving goods across long distances, but the last mile is often where costs spike.

The reasons are structural:

Routes are messy and unpredictable.
Drop-offs are frequent and small.
Time is lost at every handover.
Vehicle utilisation can be low if riders spend more time waiting than moving.

In other words, the last mile isn’t a single big trip; it’s hundreds of small ones.

The BBC describes eWaka as aiming to provide a “comprehensive service for delivering goods to the doorstep”, explicitly framing the business around this last-mile squeeze.

If you’re trying to build a delivery network, your hardest question is rarely “Can we buy vehicles?” It’s “Can we run a tight operation with vehicles that are productive most of the day?”

What eWaka is (and what makes it more than an e-bike shop)

According to the BBC, eWaka Mobility is a Kenyan start-up whose electric bicycles are visible across Nairobi.

The key specifics in the BBC report:

The company is called eWaka Mobility.
It operates in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.
It was founded in 2021.
The founders are Celeste Vogel and Jimmy Tune.

The BBC also says eWaka sells beyond the bike itself:

It sells e-bikes and training to individual riders.
It markets to companies that want a whole fleet of e-bikes.
It offers “the software to manage them.”

That combination is the tell. The product isn’t only a vehicle — it’s an operating model.

If you’ve watched enough mobility start-ups, you see the pattern: the hardware is visible, but the real moat (if there is one) is operational discipline and systems.

Why software matters for a fleet (even for something as “simple” as bikes)

A common misconception is that bikes are low-tech. For a single owner, they are. For a fleet, they become a data problem.

Even a modest delivery operation needs answers to questions like:

Which vehicles are in service today?
Which riders are trained and active?
How do you handle maintenance without losing capacity?
Where are the vehicles most of the day?
How do you plan routes and assignments?

A fleet manager doesn’t just want a pile of bikes — they want a dashboard that turns bikes into predictable capacity.

The BBC’s mention that eWaka sells “the software to manage them” implies the company is positioning itself as a tool for this kind of predictability.

That’s also how you make a pitch to larger customers. A company buying fleet capacity cares about service levels: deliveries on time, fewer breakdowns, and an operator who can show metrics.

The operational constraints: batteries, maintenance, and training

An e-bike fleet lives and dies on boring details.

Battery reality

Electric vehicles are only “always on” if you have a plan for energy.

Depending on how a fleet is set up, that may involve:

scheduled charging windows,
swap-in batteries,
routing that avoids running empty,
and policies to extend battery lifespan.

Even if the BBC video doesn’t list the specific battery model or charging method, the basic constraint is unavoidable: every delivery is also a draw on stored energy, and someone has to manage that inventory.

Maintenance reality

Dense-city delivery is hard on vehicles: potholes, curb strikes, weather, heavy loads. In a fleet model, the “unit economics” hinge on reducing downtime.

That tends to push operators toward:

standardised parts and quick repairs,
routine inspection,
and tight accountability (who was riding which bike when a fault occurred).

Training as a scaling tool

The BBC says eWaka sells training to individual riders.

Training sounds like a nice add-on, but in practice it’s how you make fleets consistent:

safer riding reduces accidents and repairs,
better handling improves delivery speed,
and standard procedures create predictable service.

In last-mile delivery, predictability is the product.

Why Nairobi is a sensible place to test this model

The BBC’s framing of “hundreds” of eWaka electric bicycles in Nairobi matters, because it hints at an environment where the technology can prove itself.

Nairobi has exactly the conditions that make last-mile delivery both essential and difficult:

traffic congestion that punishes cars,
dense areas where two-wheeled mobility can be faster,
and a growing market for delivery services.

Two-wheelers can also fit into narrow streets and stop-and-go patterns more easily than vans.

That said, a city is also where everything goes wrong:

theft risk,
unpredictable road conditions,
rider safety,
and fast wear-and-tear.

If an e-bike fleet can survive city reality, it can likely expand into other dense urban markets.

What it means that eWaka sells to both individuals and companies

The BBC says eWaka sells e-bikes and training to individuals, but also sells fleets and software to companies.

That “two customer types” strategy can be powerful — and tricky.

The upside

Individuals create visibility and adoption: more bikes on the street, more proof the concept works.
Companies create scale: bigger contracts, more predictable revenue, and a clearer path to expanding into new cities.

The tension

Supporting individuals can look like retail, which is operationally heavy.
Supporting companies can look like enterprise logistics, which requires reliability and service guarantees.

Start-ups that combine both often do it for a reason: each side reduces risk for the other.

Individual riders prove demand and create a rider base.
Corporate fleets justify investments in software and operations.

In a market where financing, trust, and maintenance can make or break adoption, the hybrid approach can be a pragmatic way to learn.

The bigger bet: electrification as “operations”, not ideology

It’s tempting to treat electrification purely as an environmental story. But the BBC’s description of eWaka reads more like a business operations story.

Electrification is being used as a lever to improve:

cost per kilometre,
reliability of a fleet,
and the ability to measure and manage operations via software.

In many places, “going electric” is a branding move.

In last-mile delivery, it can be the opposite: a way to squeeze a messy, variable system into something that behaves more like a machine.

What scaling across Africa would actually involve

The BBC says eWaka aims to sell “across Africa’s delivery market”. That’s an ambitious phrase, because “Africa” isn’t a single operating environment — it’s dozens of different regulatory systems, road conditions, power grids, and urban layouts.

A fleet model that works in Nairobi still has to be rebuilt city by city.

To scale, a company like eWaka typically needs:

A repeatable playbook for launching a new city: recruiting riders, setting up service depots, stocking spares, and creating clear rules for vehicle use.
Local operations partners or teams who can respond quickly when a bike is down. In delivery, the difference between “back tomorrow” and “back in an hour” is the difference between a fleet and a pile of broken assets.
A financing pathway that makes sense for riders and for corporate buyers. Even when demand is strong, adoption can be constrained by who pays up front and who carries risk.
A way to handle energy that matches local reality. In some places, charging is easy; in others, it becomes an operational bottleneck.

None of that is glamorous, but it’s where sustainable growth comes from.

Risks to watch as e-bike delivery becomes more common

Even if the basic idea is sound, there are predictable points where a last-mile e-bike model can run into trouble:

Safety and reputation: A few high-profile accidents can trigger regulation or customer backlash. Training helps, but it has to be continuous as fleets grow.
Maintenance debt: Fast growth can hide problems until the fleet ages — then downtime spikes and costs surprise everyone.
Theft and security: Two-wheelers are easier to steal than vans. The more valuable the battery pack, the bigger the incentive.
Software that doesn’t match the field: If the fleet-management tool is built for dashboards rather than messy real-world use, operations teams stop trusting it, and “software-enabled fleet” becomes “spreadsheet chaos”.

The upside is that these risks are not mysterious. They are manageable — but only with discipline.

Bottom line

eWaka’s pitch — e-bikes plus training plus fleet-management software — is a reminder that electrifying transport isn’t just about swapping engines. It’s about building an operating system for movement that’s reliable enough to sell as a service.

Sources

BBC News (Technology): https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c0kpel4y4g7o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss