Econet Set to Launch its Highly Anticipated Electric Vehicles in Zimbabwe

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Econet’s plan to launch electric cars is now in an advanced stage. The company’s division in charge of the project, Vaya, has confirmed that it is ready to introduce its electric vehicles.

According to Techzim, Vaya is said to be awaiting delivery of electric vehicles from different top brands like Toyota, VolksWagen, BMW, into Zimbabwe, and two other African countries.

“I can confirm that we are awaiting delivery of electric vehicles in Zimbabwe, and two other countries….People must know what electric vehicles are like, and that they are as good as petrol cars, and you have a big choice.”

Oswald Jumira, Team Lead, Vaya.

This is coming just few months after Econet’s founder announced that its logistics division, Vaya, is awaiting the delivery of 100 electric vehicles. The cars will reportedly be recharged at solar powered charging stations to solve the problem of fuel in Zimbabwe.

This will be done in partnership with Distributed Power Africa a solar energy service. Econet will put together a nation network of electric vehicle charging points all over the country to ensure that problems do not emanate from not being able to charge the cars.

According to the Vaya Team Lead, Oswald, they are already working on it with the necessary equipment available in Zimbabwe.

Already Vaya runs a logistics service and these expected electric vehicles will be added to its ride-hailing service (Vaya Hopper) and will be available for hire as Premium or Carpool.

Individuals can also sign up their EVs to the platform with a chance to receive rewards.

This is a quite innovative as many countries are beginning to embrace the ‘going-electric’ transformation. Rwanda recently unveiled a national policy guideline that will eliminate the use of petrol motorcycles in favor of electric motorcycles (e-motos) in the country.

Image result for vaya logistics

However, Econet has had a track record of complications with running other ventures outside of its telecoms business. The company has a huge pile of innovative game changing solutions which mostly failed to achieve their promised ‘internationalisation’.

The most recent being Kwese Tv, the media arm which was touted to be the biggest on the continent. This alongside ecommerce platform, Tengai; insurance product, Ecolife; online supermart, Ecoshopper; and several other business/enterprise products.

That said, its Vaya division has amassed quite a bit of approval from users both on its ride-hailing and logistics service. Hopefully the soon-to-be added electric vehicle unit will be a success, helping the company achieve its aim of expanding to 10 countries in 2020.


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