Kabisa EV House Opens in Kigali as New Hub for e-Mobility in Rwanda

Sign up for CleanTechnica’s Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott’s in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and/or follow us on Google News!Rwanda is one of the countries with some of the most progressive electric vehicle policies. A couple of years ago, Rwanda introduced some really cool incentives for EVs that included:Fiscal Incentives:Electricity tariffs for charging stations to be capped at the industrial tariff. This means that charge point operators will be billed at close to USD 10 cents/kWh instead of close to 20 cents/kWh.

Electric vehicles will also benefit from reduced tariffs during off-peak periods.Electric vehicles, spare parts, batteries, and charging station equipment will all be exempted from import and excise duties. All of these would also be treated as zero rated VAT products and will also be exempt from withholding tax.



Non-Fiscal Incentives:Rent-free land for charging stations on land owned by the government.Provisions for EV charging stations in the building code and city planning rules.Green license plates to allow preferential parking for EVs and free entry into any future congestion zones.

Access to dedicated bus lanes.Provide preference to electric vehicles for government-hired vehicles.Regulate the importation of used vehicles by imposing an age limit.

Establish restricted zones where only green vehicles can have access.Enforcement of existing emission standards to discourage the purchase of polluting vehicles.Rwanda is actively encouraging investment in the e-mobility sector, and the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) also gave a presentation outlining some of the initiatives to encourage investment.

Some of these incentives include a preferential corporate income tax rate of 15% for investors operating in e-mobility. Firms operating in the energy, ITC, and mass transport industries also qualify. And from January 1, 2025, only electric motorcycles can be registered in Rwanda.

Hybrids also benefited from incentives, but some of these incentives are now being rolled back. Hybrids will continue to get import duty exemptions, but will now pay VAT. In a market dominated by used vehicle imports, the Rwanda government wants to encourage newer hybrids that still have good battery health and discourage older hybrids.

Therefore, there is now a new excise duty for hybrids that varies with the age of the vehicle. For vehicles that are 3 years and below from the age of manufacture, the excise duty is 5%. This excise duty will be 10% for vehicles between 4 and 7 years, and 15% for vehicles older than that.

We are already starting to see the benefits of these kinds of incentives. Although Rwanda is a much smaller market than some of its regional peers, these incentives have led to Rwanda having more electric cars than most of the larger markets in East Africa. There are about 360,000 vehicles registered in Rwanda, with about 30,000 added each year.

99% of these vehicles are still ICE vehicles. Since the introduction of incentives for EVs, there has been some significant traction, though, with Rwanda now having an estimated electric car fleet of around 700 vehicles. This number becomes more impressive for this small market when you look at larger markets in the region such as Kenya.

Kenya has a fleet of around 4 million vehicles (across all vehicle categories), and about 100,000 cars are added each year. Kenya doesn’t have all these nice EV incentives yet, and it shows, as there are still just about 200 electric cars in Kenya. This means Rwanda now has 3.

5 times the number of electric cars in Kenya, despite being a much smaller market.Kabisa says its new Kabisa EV House is more than a car showroom, the centre will provide charging stations, tech-enabled maintenance facilities, meeting space for community events and training, and staff headquarters for the fast-growing EV player Kabisa. Image courtesy of Kabisa.

One of the companies leading this growth in Rwanda is Kabisa. Kabisa, is one of East Africa’s leading providers of electric vehicle (EV) sales, maintenance, and charging. Kabisa recently held a grand opening reception last month at EV House, their new headquarters in Kigali located above Camp Kigali on KN 77 Street.

Image courtesy of KabisaKabisa intends for EV House to serve as a one-stop-shop for EV owners in Rwanda, providing charging and maintenance services for EVs regardless of where they’re purchased. The new telemechanic-enabled diagnostics bay and maintenance facilities are custom-built for the needs of EV owners and drivers. The space will also host events, meetups, and training sessions for all interested parties, from executives to drivers to technologists.

Given the growing e-mobility landscape in Rwanda, partnerships are core to Kabisa EV House. Clean energy infrastructure company Meshpower took the lead in installing new solar panels at EV House, meaning customers can charge off-grid at the facility using renewable solar power. At the grand opening, SLS Energy (specializing in battery operations and recycling) offered demonstrations of its battery technologies in a nod to the full range of partners sharing the mission to move Rwanda to a clean, sustainable transportation future.

At the ground floor showroom, Kabisa’s most popular vehicles were on display and available for test drives, including Farizon commercial trucks and vans, the BYD Song Plus SUV, the Radar pickup, and the Chery iCar SUV.At the Grand Opening, Pophia Muhoza, Kabisa Rwanda Managing Director, thanked the 130+ attendees and acknowledged the progress and potential of e-mobility in Rwanda: “It’s a blessing to see so many customers, supporters, partners, and friends gathered in our new space, an exciting physical representation of the progress we are making — but we’re truly only getting started.”To support this growing fleet of electric vehicles in Rwanda, Kabisa also recently launched a new ultra-fast charging facility at SP’s Kanombe station, in Kigali.

The ultra-fast charging facility has chargers with a power capacity of up to 240 kW, compared to most of the existing charging stations in Kigali averaging 7.43 kW to 22kW. The six charging bays allow both private electric cars and entire commercial fleets of electric trucks, vans, or buses to charge simultaneously.

Electric vehicles will charge up to 10 times faster with the ultra-fast charger compared to normal AC or DC chargers — so most vehicles can charge in 15–25 minutes instead of more than one hour at conventional charging stations. This will go a long way in enticing operators of commercial fleets to transition to electric, as they need their vehicles to be on the road more often than drivers of personal vehicles do, who can have the luxury of charging at home or at the office where the vehicles spend most of their time parked.Whether you have solar power or not, please complete our latest solar power survey.

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Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/12/kabisa-ev-house-opens-in-kigali-as-new-hub-for-e-mobility-in-rwanda/.