Powered by clean energy, the Kayoola bus is an eco-friendly innovation turning heads across Africa. Pushing the boundaries of innovation, this is not just transport—it’s the future of sustainable mobility, made in Uganda
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So in 2007 we had a team of students at Makerere University with their lecturers who had a
00:17dream to manufacture the first car in Uganda or more so in Africa.
00:23In 2011, with the help of the government of Uganda, they embarked on that journey and
00:29by 2014 KMC was born.
00:32And we're here to experience the Coyola bus.
00:35I mean how cool is that?
00:37Benja?
00:38What?
00:39We had never built a car so there was no experience.
00:52Of course there was also the case of the finances.
00:56When you couple those together it was really a difficult journey but we overcame this through
01:02of course our persistence and then government came in and when government funded us, we
01:09actually were able to break that barrier of no experience.
01:29You know when you're on the ground and speaking to so many Ugandans, many of us are like really?
01:34Uganda can manufacture a car?
01:36There are not so many of them who believe that this bus, like the Coyola, was actually
01:40made here.
01:41They believe these guys might have got a Chinese car, got it to Uganda and now they are masquerading
01:48as if.
01:49What would you say to those people?
01:50We have the skills, capacity and so on.
01:54And of course we don't make everything on the car as you could see.
01:57We still buy some other things elsewhere.
02:00Just like building a house, you will not make everything.
02:03You have to buy bricks, you have to buy cement to put together but the house is built by you.
02:34It looks like it's mostly male dominated.
02:37How is it like for you to work here?
02:40From engineering school, I think we were mentally prepared to enter a field that is dominated
02:47by men, at least currently.
02:48The very beautiful thing about Kiramoto is they're really for balance, they're really
02:54for gender equality, they really strive to have an equal share of their staff having
03:01both men and women and I think it has made the working environment really comfortable
03:06for all of us.
03:07KMC is a place that really welcomes everyone.
03:13As long as you have the skills and you're ready to put them out there and you're also
03:18hungry for knowledge.
03:20It's really competitive here because there are many young, knowledgeable individuals
03:25here.
03:26But still, it's not all about like you compete with each other, it's all about working together
03:30as a team.
03:31That's why they encourage you around here.
03:50All the engineering is here, so people don't tend to see that we don't outsource the brains
03:58are here and then the frames, the body and most of the outside structure we make here.
04:05Then things like the electrical systems, the axles and engines we still buy and the batteries.
04:12But we have a very concrete, all-steady program to localize most of these components to about
04:1765% by 2030 and we're already doing that with suppliers around.
04:29KMC.
04:31KMC.
04:33KMC.
04:35KMC.