If you want to understand the true state of transport in West Africa, stand at any Lagos junction at 7 a.m. and watch a commercial rider argue with his fuel gauge.
A litre of petrol can swing from affordable to outrageous overnight, and every fluctuation hits a livelihood. A large share of urban trips, including deliveries, in sub-Saharan Africa are still made on two-wheelers, most of them powered by engines that choke on fuel prices as much as they choke the air.
It is here, in a region where transport reliability is a daily gamble, that Spiro is doing something unusual: building an electric mobility system that does not collapse under Africa’s stubborn challenges.
The company isn’t simply selling e-bikes; it is constructing a technology stack that runs from motor efficiency to data analytics, battery intelligence, GPS telemetry, fast-charging grids and automated swap stations, all in places where the electricity supply can disappear without warning.
But then, somehow, it works.
The Problem Spiro Wants to Solve
Africa’s motorcycle economy is a lifeline, but it is also a burden. Riders spend anywhere between 30–40% of their daily revenue on fuel. Maintenance costs pile up. Governments struggle to regulate emissions. Fleet owners cannot track assets. And riders themselves live with constant anxiety from fuel shortages, theft risks, unpredictable downtime and the dread of a breakdown in the middle of a delivery round.
Spiro’s value proposition, to create an electric alternative that does not demand perfect power supply, does not impose long charging delays, and does not ask riders to gamble with expensive batteries, sits directly in this mayhem. It is mobility re-engineered around African conditions rather than imported expectations.
This is where the company’s engineering becomes interesting.
Building Intelligence Into the Bike
In a chat with Techeconomy, Rahul Gaur, Spiro’s director for West Africa, spoke about the company’s technology with the steadiness of someone who has tested it across countries with wildly different challenges.
For him, the breakthrough is the integration of GPS, IoT and real-time telemetry within both the bike and the battery. As he explained, “the bike and the battery both have different trackers inside them,” a design choice that instantly changes the maths for fleet owners and governments trying to protect high-value assets.
The system allows full digital oversight: location, routes, braking behaviour, idle time, health status, power consumption and even sleep cycles. Gaur described it as an essential layer of trust: “You can also go to an extent of remotely immobilising the bike or put it in standby mode with just a click of a button.”
For operators handling thousands of riders, this level of control is a luxury they’ve never had.
He went further: “With geo-fencing and time-fencing, you can program the bike to ‘sleep’ at 10 pm and wake at 6 am. Once set, the bike automatically continues this routine.”
With asset security being a constant challenge in our region, the technology goes beyond a feature, it’s a tool helping users overcome limitations in the space.
The Swap Station: An Engineering Triumph
Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) is the core of Spiro’s model. A rider does not own the battery; the network does. This eliminates the biggest obstacle to electric adoption, the battery’s cost, and places all responsibility for battery health and performance on the company.
It also demands precision.
Each automated swap station is built around a simple but powerful handshake between the bike and the battery.
“It is very important for the bike and battery to be married together,” Gaur explained. That marriage is monitored in real time. The moment a rider pulls in, the system already knows the specific battery he is carrying.
The swap itself is extremely fast, one to two minutes.
Gaur broke down the workflow: “The swap station agent just scans the incoming battery… and then scans the outgoing battery, making it a very, I’ll say, a faster swap, within one minute or two minutes.”
What looks like a quick scan is backed by a deep battery analytics pipeline, the company constantly monitors cycles, temperature, performance history and overall health. Nothing is guesswork.
Power Outages Are Not the End of the Story
Nigeria’s grid is unpredictable, and Gaur does not pretend otherwise. Instead, Spiro has engineered around the reality.
Before launching in any city, the company studied power availability block by block. Swap stations are placed in locations with the most reliable power sources. Where this still isn’t enough, the firm built internal redundancy.
Solar-powered swap stations.
Fast-charging nodes at stations with high load capacity.
Second-life batteries acting as power buffers.
According to Gaur:
“We have got one or two prototypes working very perfectly now in Nigeria using Second Life batteries, they work to keep the swap station during power outages.”
This is smart engineering, designed for countries where diesel generators are still part of everyday life.
Fast Charging: The New Expansion Front
Swap stations solve commercial riders’ biggest problem: speed. But they are not the only answer. Private users and intercity riders need flexibility, so Spiro is deploying public fast-charging stations across major urban corridors.
Each station provides multiple charging “guns”, allowing six to eight riders to charge simultaneously.
A full charge takes under an hour, although Gaur notes that riders rarely wait that long: “They will charge for 30-40% and then move to the next trip… and may be charged 100% at their will at home.”
Fast charging, in Gaur’s view, will become as common as petrol stations for electric bikes in Nigeria.
Home Charging: Simple, Safe and Familiar
For private users, Spiro includes a compact home charger built with the same philosophy as a laptop adapter. Riders plug in at night or early morning and start the day charged without visiting a station.
Gaur explained: “I wouldn’t call it a backup, because our home chargers are simple, like laptop chargers. Riders can charge conveniently at home and start the day with a full battery, giving them a head start.”
This small detail, access to free home charging, removes another layer of anxiety for users who fear being stranded.
Local Assembly and the Economics of Scale
Nigeria and Kenya now host Spiro assembly operations, but the company has gone further by creating a continental tech centre in Nigeria. This means diagnostics, software, technical support and battery intelligence are handled locally.
Gaur emphasised this: “99.9% manpower today in the plant is local.”
Localisation has not yet massively reduced costs, but its long-term impact is clear. “We will see a lot more validation coming in… in 2026 where we go all out with the plant operations.”
A future where most components are built or integrated locally becomes more possible with each expansion cycle.
Engineering a Bike for African Roads
Spiro’s bikes are powered by a 4.5 kW motor with a 6 kW peak, placing them firmly in the performance range of 100–150cc petrol bikes.
Gaur explained the reasoning: “The 4.5 kW motor, if tuned very well, can be compared to 100 and 125 cc petrol bike easily, and its peak output of 6 kW can match or even exceed a 150 cc bike.”
African riders value torque, stability and hill-climb capacity more than abstract performance metrics, which is why Spiro tuned the motor for harsh terrain, heavy loads and stop-and-go commuting.
Fighting Range Anxiety Through Behaviour and Data
Range anxiety is universal, but Gaur has seen how quickly it fades. “Once they are used to it for at least two or three months, they know what to do with the machine.”
With the app showing the nearest swap and charging locations, riders learn their routes the way they once memorised petrol stations. It becomes instinctive.
Like a smartphone, you don’t panic when the battery falls to 15%; you just know when to plug in.
State-of-Charge (SOC) Billing: Precision and Fairness
Spiro introduced a billing system based entirely on the State of Charge of the battery. Riders pay only for the energy they consume.
Gaur’s explanation is very apt: “If I’m charging N2000 for 100%, you do 50% you pay me N1000.”
This removes disputes and eliminates the old assumption that every swap equals a full charge. Riders are billed fairly; the company gains granular data to optimise battery life across the entire network.
Scaling Electric Mobility: What the Future Looks Like
Gaur is optimistic about Africa’s potential, pragmatically optimistic. Success for Spiro goes beyond selling bikes, the company is building a transport ecosystem that overcomes the limitations of the grid.
On the key technical and operational factors that would support battery-swap model as a potential standard for urban mobility in Africa, Gaur said:
“Firstly, we identify the right locations. Second power supply has to be very reliable. And thirdly, I say, the choice of state to go ahead with… states which are progressive in supporting or promoting electric mobility.”
These factors will dictate where swap stations, fast chargers and assembly extensions appear next.
But the bigger vision is what happens when this system scales; lower emissions, lower costs for riders, more jobs around stations, and mobility that does not break every time the grid does.
Spiro is building sustainable stability, one battery, one motor, one data point at a time. With transport usually unpredictable in Africa, Spiro is working to make reliability feel normal.
It is not a perfect system. It is an evolving one. But in the incredible, fuel-burning sector of African cities, an electric bike with intelligence, fast charging, solar-powered stations, automated swapping and real-time data is a brilliant revolution.
A very practical revolution.
