Can Financing Unlock Africa's EV Revolution Faster Than Technology? with Nena Sanderson

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast. I started my career in management consulting and after some great training at BCG, I learned that I really love operating companies, specifically operating in the African market. You don't need the climate story to matter to the individual drivers for them to want to adopt electric. The EV ecosystem requires cooperation among many players and so partnership has been hugely important for us.

[00:00:28] We're scaling quickly in Kenya, but looking to accelerate our geographic expansion so that we can be on the leading edge of driving that transition across the continent. Stay tuned as we bring you inspiring people who are unlocking Africa's economic potential. You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast with your host, Terser Adamu.

[00:00:55] Welcome to another episode of the Unlocking Africa podcast, where we explore the ideas, innovations and strategies that are unlocking Africa's economic potential. Today, we're discussing one of the biggest transformations happening across Africa right now, which is the shift to electric mobility. Across the continent, more than 30 million motorcycles are on the road.

[00:01:19] They move people, deliver goods, create jobs and power entire informal economies. But they also consume vast amounts of fuel, contribute to air pollution and increase operating costs for riders who often have very thin profit margins. One company helping to accelerate that transition is M-Copa. Since launching its mobility business, M-Copa has financed thousands of electric motorcycles through an innovative pay-to-go model,

[00:01:49] helping riders reduce costs while contributing to cleaner transport systems. Joining me today is Mimi Kufour, Chief Product Officer at M-Copa and MD of the Mobility Department of the Business. Nina leads product strategy across one of Africa's most successful fintech and asset financing businesses, and sits at the intersection of technology, finance, customer experience and mobility innovation.

[00:02:18] Nina, welcome, welcome, welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast. How are you? Thanks, Tessa. Very good. It's great to be here. I'm joining you from the fabulous city of Nairobi and really looking forward to our conversation today. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. As always, I'd like to start from the beginning. Can you please introduce yourself and give us an understanding of who Nina Sanderson is? Absolutely.

[00:02:46] So I am originally from the U.S. and grew up in the fabulous state of North Carolina. I started my career in management consulting, as many people did and I guess still do. And after some great training at BCG, I learned that I really love operating companies and I love the challenge and the opportunity and the impact of specifically operating companies in the African market.

[00:03:12] So I've been living and working in East Africa for almost 15 years now. I currently live in Kenya. I've also lived in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. And most of this last 15 years has been in the asset financing and financial services sector. And I'd say one of my high level reflections from those 15 years is that the banking sector is just simply not built or designed for everyday earners, who are the vast majority of adults on this continent.

[00:03:42] And so I am excited to continue my career in this huge opportunity of how we do financing differently to serve everyday earners better. Thank you for that. So you've given us a nice overview of your professional background and experience, which has led you to what you're doing now. The exciting, innovative work at ENCOPA, specifically in the e-mobility space.

[00:04:05] So if we go into that in a bit more detail in terms of, you know, when people talk about Africa's e-mobility opportunity, they often focus on the electric vehicles themselves. From your perspective, what would you say are some of the real challenges actually building that ecosystem around them? Yeah, absolutely. Great question.

[00:04:28] And maybe just to position this, you know, if you look at the high level numbers today, you'll see massive markets like China, like Europe, that are kind of at 25, 50 percent EV penetration, at least of new sales. And Africa as a market overall looks, you know, very far behind that, I'd say not much more than one percent.

[00:04:52] But I think that that really hides what's happening and particularly the incredible progress that we've seen in certain pockets of Africa over the last handful of years. And so when you think about the sector overall, I would say you need certainly vehicles. And then you need a couple of key enabling factors to exist in the environment. So electric vehicles may be starting there.

[00:05:18] You do need a certain type of vehicle that's built for African roads. First and foremost, the most common form of transportation on the continent is not actually a car like it is in so many other parts of the world. It is a two-wheeler or three-wheeler motorbike or a bus. African roads, as you would know well, are also a lot more, let's say, rugged and tough on bikes.

[00:05:43] And so when you think about two-wheelers, your typical Asian scooter is not going to do very well on Kenya's hills and Kenya's dirt roads. And so you do need a bike that's kind of purpose-built for the African market. A couple of other key infrastructure enablers that you need, reliable electricity. So obviously petrol and petrol stations are relatively ubiquitous, even across the African continent.

[00:06:08] If you're going to switch drivers from using petrol as fuel to using electricity as fuel, they need to have a reliable source of electricity and then places where they can charge or swap their batteries or bikes. The third piece that I would say is really important is then that distribution and financing layer.

[00:06:31] So the vast majority of two- and three-wheeler drivers on the African continent are not actually buying their motorcycles outright. They are getting those financed through one mechanism or another. And so to switch to electric, you need a strong financing partner who's capable of financing electric vehicles. And then you need the distribution to get those vehicles out to the second and third tier cities where customers can access them.

[00:07:00] You touched on an important point in terms of the most common form of transportation on the continent is a motorcycle. I know I read somewhere that there are over 30 million motorcycles operating across Africa today. This might be quite obvious to yourself or I guess to the listeners. Why would you say it is important to electrify that segment in particular? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:07:25] So let me speak maybe first about the huge impact potential of electrifying this sector. And then we can come to the commercial case as well. But I think the impact case is incredibly strong. So you have, as you said, about 30 million drivers who are operating motorcycles today across the continent. The vast majority of those drivers today are operating a petrol motorbike.

[00:07:52] Petrol motorbikes are actually a significant contributor to the air pollution problem in Kenya's or in Africa's cities overall. So this is a little known fact that I actually didn't know before I got into this sector. But a typical petrol motorbike actually emits 10 times as much nitrous oxide as a petrol car does. And so when you think about the air pollution in Africa's cities, which are very significant,

[00:08:20] most of the kind of top, let's say, 20 cities in Africa are well above the WHO guidelines of safe levels of nitrous oxide and other particulate matter. And the real contributors to that toxic air pollution are actually not cars. They are motorbikes and buses. Air pollution is one of the leading causes of early death globally.

[00:08:47] And that is certainly especially true in large African cities. And so if we want to address the air pollution problem, we need to address electrification, particularly of motorbikes and particularly of buses. The second really compelling reason is that the product is actually just so good and it saves drivers a huge amount of money. And so those 30 million drivers who are operating petrol motorbikes,

[00:09:13] they are earning, let's say, 15 to 20 dollars a day, driving that by a kind of full time 100 kilometers a day, six days a week. And at the end of the day, with that 15 to 20 dollars today, they're putting roughly a third of that back into fuel and maintenance for their bike. One of our customers, Armstrong, put this really well. He said, with my petrol bike at the end of the day, the money I make, I split it with my bike.

[00:09:43] If those customers can shift to electric, though, they save actually quite a bit of money. And so we're able to save them three to five dollars a day. This is after the cost of financing by not having to fuel and having fewer maintenance costs associated with their bike. So our customer, Armstrong, he says, you know, with the electric bike, I no longer have to split that money with my bicycle.

[00:10:08] It's mine to take home and use to support my family at the end of the day. And so we've seen that, you know, transition to electric is already being highly led by drivers themselves and strong demand as they come to understand the cost savings associated with switching to electric. But then it has a huge number of follow on benefits in terms of air pollution, in terms of reducing CO2 emissions.

[00:10:36] And the transportation sector is about one of the top kind of two to three sources of CO2 emissions in most countries across the continent. And then it also helps sort of economies reduce their reliance on foreign oil, which is a major effects, you know, sink for those economies and source of foreign effects requirements. Fantastic.

[00:11:02] So as you rightly mentioned, you know, many people see climate change almost as the primary driver of EV adoption. But say for one, the Boda Boda riders in Nairobi, would you say the decision really is about sustainability or is it ultimately a economic decision?

[00:11:22] Yeah, I would say this is like one of the beauties of this sector and one of the reasons why I have so much confidence in its growth and success over the next decades to come is you don't actually need the climate story to matter to the individual drivers for them to want to adopt electric.

[00:11:41] We typically talk about, you know, our target customer, who is what we call a Boda Boda driver, as you said, but somebody who is operating a motorcycle for the purposes of income generation, either passengers or deliveries. They typically care about four things. So the first thing and I would say by far the most important thing is cost. We just talked about that.

[00:12:07] They save kind of three to five dollars a day by switching to electric, which is just a massive amount of money back into the pockets of people operating in this segment in the economy. The second thing they care about is performance and electric motorbikes outperform petrol motorbikes. They're a significantly smoother ride. They have faster acceleration, etc. Passengers really love it because of the smoothness. It's a quieter ride. All of these things.

[00:12:34] They also look better and sleeker in many cases. The third thing riders tend to care about is maintenance. So how much will I have to spend and how much time will I have to put into maintenance of my bike? And because electric motorbikes have fewer moving parts, the maintenance requirements also quite a bit lower. And then finally, they care about range and ability to refuel or charge their bikes.

[00:12:58] And I'd say that fourth bit is, you know, what's really important for all of us as sector builders to make sure reaches parity with petrol. But if you have those four ingredients in place, which I would say largely we already do in East Africa, the switch is entirely driven by, you know, the economics and preferences of drivers. And then just has a massive secondary benefit in terms of climate and air pollution and health. So we've touched on the ecosystems there.

[00:13:28] And I think that's where the conversation actually gets quite interesting because I know you probably agree, no single company can build the charging infrastructure, the manufacturing of vehicles and also the financing all by themselves. And that's where I think the Kenya model is quite interesting because it's quite advanced in comparison to a lot of other African regions. So what would you say Kenya has done differently from other African countries?

[00:13:58] Yeah, it's a very interesting question. And I would certainly second your observation. It feels like across the continent, you had e-mobility players that maybe started in different places and it feels like they're all kind of flocking to Kenya or East Africa because that is really becoming the epicenter of activity and market share growth. Rwanda and Ethiopia are also very interesting for their own reasons, which I can get into.

[00:14:25] But I would say, you know, what's working in Kenya and East Africa broadly? I think one of the most important ingredients is the economics, the cost of electricity compared to the cost of petrol. And that is fundamentally what drives the riders economic decision to switch from petrol to electric.

[00:14:47] And across East Africa in general, you have a relatively high and stable supply of electricity. That electricity is also clean, which is important for the climate story, because if you're displacing petrol with, say, diesel or coal, you know, you're not making much progress. But on the economic side, we have clean electricity.

[00:15:10] It is also, particularly in Kenya, tends to be underutilized at night and so becomes cheaper to charge at night and beneficial to the grid to have higher loads at night. That works well with the profile of electric motorbikes and EVs in general, where they're out kind of riding them during the day and then charging at night.

[00:15:34] Another factor in Kenya is it just is a very sort of entrepreneurial, you know, ecosystem that has quite a bit of support for startups and early stage companies. Mobile money is very prevalent, as you know. And so a lot of those enabling factors have made it kind of easy for companies to start and gain some traction in Kenya and Nairobi, especially.

[00:16:00] And then I will also mention policy environment has been quite favorable. And so President Ruto has worked to position himself as a sort of green president. And Kenya has put in place some tax incentives to support electric vehicle importation and local assembly, which has been very helpful. You've seen other markets like Rwanda and Ethiopia achieve similar and even higher levels of market share growth in electric.

[00:16:29] And that's actually been through mandating. So Rwanda has gone from zero to we can call it effectively 100 percent electric market share just by banning imports. And so you do see different governments approaching this differently. Kenya and Uganda more from the tax exemptions and then Rwanda and Ethiopia more from the regulatory side.

[00:16:48] So with regards to the economics, how important would you say government policies have been in creating that condition for growth compared to, say, private sector innovation? I'd say very important.

[00:17:02] I think that the tax breaks in Kenya and Uganda have been a big factor that have helped companies, you know, incentivize them, say, to set up local assembly, helped to get those first call it 10, 20,000 bikes on the road. Those first 10, 20, 100,000 bikes are always the ones that have the worst economics, unit economics in general, because you just haven't gotten into sort of mass scale.

[00:17:28] And so I think that those incentives, particularly early on, have been really important. I would say another government incentive that matters a lot is subsidy of fuel. And so in markets where you have a relatively high fuel subsidy rate, then that is almost a, you know, it's a disincentive for electric and it's almost like a negative subsidy for getting customers to have the positive incentives to switch to electric.

[00:17:58] And so East Africa has a good combination of those incentives to support electric and then, you know, not too much subsidization of fuel and other things to cut against that. I would say that one factor that's really important when we think about policy and enabling environment is the stability of policy.

[00:18:21] And having lived in Kenya for eight years now, I have gone through eight cycles of the annual finance bill in Kenya. And I will say that having, you know, policy stability that is really only a year long in that the finance bill and all of the associated TAPS incentives and support to companies is kind of up for renewal and revisiting every year.

[00:19:05] I guess from your perspective or opinion, if another African country wanted to replicate, say, Kenya's, successful model, what would you say are some of the essential building blocks it would need? Yeah, interesting question.

[00:19:24] I would say building block number one is electricity, reliable electricity, ideally clean again for the climate side and cheap, at least as it compares to fuel. That would be number one. Number two would be careful of your fuel subsidies so that you don't create a perverse environment. Number three would be mobile money or payment infrastructure in general.

[00:19:52] So financing is really essential to making electric bikes affordable to customers, particularly at this period where the asset itself remains more expensive than their petrol motorbike. And so Encopa's model of financing is daily payments, which is the kind of most affordable and flexible way to make these available to customers. A daily payment model requires pretty strong payments infrastructure.

[00:20:20] Mobile money is obviously the dominant and most prevalent, you know, way to achieve that. You do have slightly different payment environments in, say, Nigeria or South Africa than you do in East Africa. But prevalence and ubiquity of low friction payments of electricity.

[00:20:37] And then I would say kind of general enabling environment for electric, whether that's regulation, whether that's subsidies, you know, VAT exemptions, local assembly incentives to get the infrastructure investments moving would be the key ingredients. As you highlighted, one of the essential building blocks is financing.

[00:21:03] You know, as you know yourself, Encopa has built a reputation by making product assets affordable. What made electric mobility a natural extension of that model? Yeah, another kind of fun story in Encopa's history. So Encopa, as you may know, got its start very early on in the Paysio solar sector, actually.

[00:21:29] And the mission has always been to finance progress or enable financial progress for everyday earners. And so we have always seen an initial asset as one of the very important ways to help unlock that financial progress by, you know, enabling us to collateralize finance for customers who don't have a credit history.

[00:21:52] We made a pivot, let's say, you know, 2020 or so from solar to smartphones as the next big asset that we've been focused on financing and have built a pretty large and successful digital financial services business in terms of follow on lending and follow on financial services to those customers that we acquire with a smartphone. A couple of years ago, I think it was 2022.

[00:22:21] We said, great, we have some very successful looking business units in smartphone financing and digital financial services. So let's put some thought into what we think the next big thing is. And we had an R&D team and we challenged them to go think about this. And we said, we want to know where asset financing could be applied to an opportunity with really high impact and a big commercial opportunity.

[00:22:51] So the R&D team went out and investigated a lot of things. They came back with a short list, which at the time was agriculture equipment, heating and cooling, cooking and transportation. We wrote a bunch of dueling white papers and had a big debate sort of at the executive team and the board level. And ultimately coming out of that, we chose transportation as the next big thing that we wanted to focus on.

[00:23:19] And I say, you know, four big reasons. One is the impact potential is huge. We spoke about that from a climate, you know, an air pollution, an income generation and then sort of macroeconomic perspective. The next was because the solution is just so good. And so as we spoke about, you know, the proposition of electric is actually just so much better than petrol.

[00:23:44] And we found that having a really excellent product and particularly a very high productive use product is one of the really important unlocks for good credit performance. Because customers, you know, if they have a product that they love, that they value incredibly highly and that is a source of income for them, then they will want very deeply to pay for that product every day and ultimately own it, you know, unconditionally.

[00:24:13] And then because the solution is so good, we see the commercial potential as being very high. And so new two and three wheeler sales in Africa is about a nine billion dollar a year kind of market today growing at about 12 percent per year. So call it 12 billion by 2030. And because, again, the proposition is so strong, that makes the unit economic strong.

[00:24:40] So we're able to, you know, establish pretty early on a profitable business while also providing a really strong proposition to customers due to the income generation and the cost savings. And then finally, we saw M-Copa, you know, motorbikes as a asset that is powered by a lithium ion battery that is used by a segment of customers that definitely falls into our everyday earner customer profile.

[00:25:09] So that's a good opportunity to take everything that we've learned as an asset financing for the last decade or so and apply it to a sector that's very early, but has a huge amount of scale and impact potential. And to really position ourselves from day one as a market leader and a sort of pioneer and enabler of the overall sector. Thank you for that.

[00:25:33] So with regards to the financing, what did M-Copa have to rethink or redesign when designing a finance model for motorcycle riders or informal workers? Yeah, it's an interesting question.

[00:25:49] I would say a lot about the financing model that we built for solar and smartphones does work well and extend well to electric motorbikes.

[00:26:04] So the idea of breaking a loan down into daily payments, the idea of using the asset to collateralize the loan, the idea of being very inclusive about who we will let in at the beginning and then using daily payments to build a credit history very quickly for customers.

[00:26:27] Those have all been things that have been moving forward.

[00:26:57] And so the way that we're on the road and get parked, you know, in different locations at night and these types of things. And so the way in which we collateralize the asset through locking was something we had to take a lot of care to design. And so we built, let's say, more flexibility into our model where locking doesn't happen on a sort of, you know, very specific timestamp basis.

[00:27:24] But it happens more in the natural use case of how a customer is using a bike. So if they get behind on their payments, it will lock, you know, only once they've had a certain number of opportunities to catch up and or sort of be blocked at the point of swapping rather than when they might be out on the road or, you know, have parked their bike somewhere overnight and need to get it back.

[00:27:50] The other one I would say is that we've needed to be a little bit more conscious about how we make sure we get back the asset if the customer is not able to finish paying so that we're able to redeploy that asset and get value out of it, you know, and get it into another customer's hands.

[00:28:11] And we've tried to design really flexible, you know, return policies and incentives to encourage customers to bring back those bikes if they're not able to finish paying. And then that secondary market for refurbished bikes has become very important and something we've put a lot of focus on cracking. I guess it's clear that the model works because since launching, you finance thousands of electric motorcycles.

[00:28:37] But what would you say you've learned about customer behavior since you've launched that maybe has surprised you or you weren't expecting? Hmm. An interesting dynamic of your Boda Boda riders. So we focus very much on the productive use segment, which is the majority of motorcycle riders in East Africa compared to the commuter segment.

[00:29:05] So your productive use segment, your Boda Boda riders are people who use this product, you know, 12 hours a day. And it is in many ways their life and their livelihood. And they are very discerning consumers. And they are also highly organized. And so in many ways, this is great.

[00:29:25] You know, it makes for a customer base that will give you a lot of feedback and that you can really engage with to have conversations, you know, to get ideas, that kind of thing. But there is certainly an element of groupthink in a sense. Word spreads very fast. So when a new bike comes out, when we start selling it, opinions will form very quickly among the driver population. This is a good bike for these reasons. You know, the bike has these problems.

[00:29:56] And when operational challenges do come up, say delays with, you know, swapping networks or range issues with the bike battery, we hear about them very, very quickly from our riders. Which, again, I think is a fantastic thing and helps us to be a better company.

[00:30:14] But it has pushed us to really be on our toes at all moments about the proposition that we are delivering and, you know, any challenges and issues that may be coming up for our customers. At the beginning, we mentioned that the success of this space depends on the ecosystem and not one company on its own. I know, Emcopa, you work with manufacturers, ride hailing companies, battery providers and other ecosystem players.

[00:30:43] So what partnerships would you say have been key to the success of what you've been doing in this space? Yeah, absolutely. I would say first and foremost, excellent motorcycles have been our most important partnership. And generally, the EV ecosystem requires cooperation among many players. And so partnership has been hugely important for us.

[00:31:12] Probably the most important initial partnership is with excellent producers of very good bikes. And so as we talked about earlier in the podcast, selling a bike here in Kenya requires a bike that's very purpose-built for this market.

[00:31:29] And so we have searched long and hard and been very picky about which original equipment manufacturers or OEMs we will work with and have chosen suppliers that, you know, we believe in and who really sweat the details around quality, safety, customer experience and cost of bikes.

[00:31:51] Another important partnership that has been incredibly beneficial to us and as well are our drivers has been partnerships with fleet companies. So ride hailing ops, Bolt is a major partner of ours in Kenya.

[00:32:07] And what we have found is that by combining an excellent bike with MCOPA's financing proposition to make that bike affordable with then the income generation opportunity of Bolt or other ride hailing platform,

[00:32:26] what we're able to provide to the customer is a great product that is saving them money that they can sort of afford and drive off the lot, you know, in one day connected to an excellent income generation opportunity. And so it's pretty amazing. If you go to one of our shops, you will see our sales agents will sell the customer the bike. They will onboard them to how to use the bike.

[00:32:54] They will originate the loan. So they will provide them information with how they can pay back the loan. And then they will also register and onboard them onto the Bolt platform. And so they'll give them education about, you know, how to be a driver on the Bolt platform, how to get the most out of it, you know, accepting rides, customer service, et cetera.

[00:33:18] And then that driver can drive off the lot with a new bike alone and essentially their first gig, a passenger or a delivery to go do right that moment and start making money. And so that combination of the great products, the income generation opportunity and then the financing and distribution, I think is pretty powerful.

[00:33:40] So from your experience, the companies that you see in this space, especially in Kenya, East Africa, that are successful or doing good things, would you say are the ones who have the best technology or the ones who have built the strongest ecosystems? Yeah, it's an interesting question. You will certainly need both in the long term.

[00:34:03] I think that there is a view that, let's say on the hardware side, you need best product and lowest cost, right? That is fundamentally, you know, to be an OEM, it's all about products, quality, customer experience and cost down.

[00:34:23] And so the OEMs that I believe will survive and succeed and be successful are the ones that are really going to sweat the, you know, the hardware and the technical side. The other elements of the ecosystem, though, that's hugely important that we haven't spoken about is your swap or charging network. And a lot of companies right now are kind of spanning both of those. So they may make a bike, but then they also operate the swap networks.

[00:34:54] And I think that the way that the East African market is developing so far, we have not yet seen the direction ultimately that we will go in terms of, you know, swap stations versus charging networks. And no company has yet achieved much of a level of interoperability.

[00:35:20] So your swap networks out there are mostly swapping your own bikes and not yet anyone else's bikes, which means that those batteries, you know, that are sitting in cabinets across hundreds of swap stations are only getting utilized for sort of one network. And so I think on the swap network side and the charging network side,

[00:35:42] the companies that succeed will be those that are able to establish the successful partnerships and sort of become, you know, that ubiquitous interoperable provider. Whereas the bike manufacturers that succeed will be very focused on technical excellence. So with that in mind, if we look across the value chain today, where would you say the biggest gaps still exist?

[00:36:11] Investment capital. I would say this is an early sector. It's early and it's accelerating pretty significantly. But in a world like that, what you have is a lot of relatively early stage companies who have maybe succeeded in raising a seed round, a series A round,

[00:36:36] and are now approaching that level where in order to really drive, you know, the next level of scale and get to mass adoption of electric across the continent, they need to raise bigger rounds. And we're getting into this. Some people call it the valley of death. But that sort of moment in between that VC early stage capital and that, you know, private equity later stage kind of growth capital.

[00:37:05] And so I would say that certainly for us as Mcopa, we see ourselves very much as an ecosystem enabler providing that distribution and financing. We have seen that our main constraint to scale is very much not demand. The customer demand is there and very strong. We have really long waiting lists of customers who've paid deposits and are waiting for a bike.

[00:37:31] Our constraint is supply, reliable supply of high quality bikes. And there are high quality bikes in the market. The companies that produce them are all on their own journeys, let's say, of raising the next round of capital, both equity to unlock the debt that will enable them to get into sort of a true mass manufacturing so that we can reach the level of scale that, you know, the demand is kind of there to support.

[00:38:01] Fantastic. So if we move from the gaps that we're seeing today, if we were to have this conversation, say, in 10 years from now, you know, from your perspective, what would success look like for Africa's e-mobility space? Yeah, I really believe that the transition to electric can happen really fast. Certainly in East Africa, where you see all of the enabling factors really there today.

[00:38:29] And I think in other regions, West Africa will get there as electricity becomes a bit more stable. And South Africa is also moving quickly to have those enabling factors in place. And you have relatively a population that is growing very fast, where vehicle ownership is lower than other parts of the world.

[00:38:55] And, you know, that is growing in terms of GDP per capita. And so in that environment, you have a relatively higher proportion of sort of future transportation needs that will be met by new bikes coming into the market or being produced in market, rather than kind of replacement of existing vehicles that are here today.

[00:39:21] And when you can be, you know, focusing your market share on gaining share of new sales and see that really shift the market, that can move a lot faster than if you have to wait for a replacement cycle of, you know, a relatively established fleet. And so for those reasons, you know, I just see no reason why you couldn't have other countries following the example of Rwanda, of Kenya,

[00:39:46] where you see electrification in a position to flip from zero to 100% within a decade, say. I think that the three factors that really need to be in place there are the driver economics, which comes down to petrol versus electricity. You need the reliability of the infrastructure, electricity and payments. And then you need that government support, whether it's regulation or tax incentives.

[00:40:12] And you need that support to be long term and in sort of stable policy. And with that in mind, what role do you believe M-COPA will play in that success? Yeah, we hope a big one. We are a company that has spent more than a decade figuring out how to crack asset financing and distribution.

[00:40:35] And we believe that that financing is a really important enabler for the transition to electric first to happen at all, but also to happen, you know, quickly. And so we think that we have a lot of value to add in being pioneers and market leaders in a sort of finance led transition to electric.

[00:40:59] And for that reason, you know, we're scaling quickly in Kenya, but looking to accelerate our own geographic expansion so that we can be on the sort of leading edge of driving that transition across the continent. Quote of the week. As people, we often have quotes, mantras, proverbs or affirmations that keep us going when times are good or challenging. Do you have one that is particularly meaningful to yourself that you can share with us today? I do.

[00:41:30] Back when I was a very idealistic MBA student, I did a summer internship at Acumen Fund. And Acumen's founder, Jacqueline Novogratz, one of the things that she says a lot is just start and let the work teach you. And I always find that to be powerful and something that like probably comes up in my day to day work at least once a week. I have a strong bias for action.

[00:41:57] And I find that often, you know, as founders, as smart business leaders, we can get stuck in analysis paralysis. You know, there are many roads ahead of us. Which one do we take? How do we make sure that we make the most perfect decision, you know, right now? And that mantra, just start and let the work teach you is, you know, just take the first step.

[00:42:21] You can usually learn such an incredible amount from, say, the first 10 customers that you speak to or the first prototype that you get out there. And then the second bit, let the work teach you, I think is also equally important. You don't want to take one step down a path blindly and then just keep going. But you want to have really incredibly strong feedback loops that tell you, OK, what have I learned after that first step? And then how do I use that?

[00:42:48] Let the work teach me to sort of optimize and continue in finding my way to the best direction. Fantastic and fitting for today's conversation. Nina, that has been a great conversation. I think what I've enjoyed most is learning more about the e-mobility transition, not simply being about replacing petrol engines with electric ones.

[00:43:12] It's about the entire ecosystem from policymakers to financiers to manufacturers and also ultimately the millions of riders who keep African economies moving every day. So thank you for sharing your time, your knowledge with us. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure for me, too. Thank you to everyone who has listened and stayed tuned to the podcast.

[00:43:39] If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share or tell a friend about it. You can also rate, review us in Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcast. Thank you and see you next week for the Unlocking Africa podcast. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.