Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC), a Ugandan state-owned vehicle manufacturing company, has unveiled what it says is Africa’s first solar-powered bus named ‘Kayoola’, that uses only solar panels mounted on its roof to move a distance of about 80 kms.
The bus was test driven in public for the first time on Sunday at a stadium in Kampala, the country’s capital.
Kiira motors, which launched an electric car named Kiira EV last year, hope to attract investors to enable them to mass produce the solar bus for export to other African countries and the rest of the world.
“We wanted to investigate those opportunities, particularly because Uganda being one of the 13 countries positioned along the Equator, gives us about eight hours of significant solar energy that can be harvested,” New Vision quoted Paul Musasizi saying during the launch.
The Kiira Motors project is an industrial development intervention started by Makerere University and supported by the Presidential initiative for Science and Technology Innovations.
