When computer engineer Joel Jackson arrived in Kenya in 2009 one of the first things he noticed was the state of the roads. He had come to the country with a non-profit organisation to help small-scale farmers increase their productivity, but he soon realised that a more pressing problem existed.

“It became clear that the lack of appropriate transport affected many parts of rural Africa,” he said.

So he set about building something that would fill that gap – a $6,000 (£3,850) car. Mobius One, as the first vehicle was dubbed, was built by local welders and mechanics. The car was stripped of all the luxuries that Western drivers take for granted.

“It had a tubular steel frame and off-the-shelf parts. It looked like a dune buggy, took 10 months to build and cost $14,000 (£9,000),” said Mr Jackson. But it worked, and that was enough to persuade him to quit his day job and move full-time to his newly formed company, Mobius Motors. Attracting attention He raised a quarter of a million dollars in venture-capital funding and used some of it to recruit a team of engineers to build the second
prototype, Mobius Two.

“We eliminated all non-essential features. The important thing was to make sure it was rugged and durable because African roads are highly degraded,” he said. The car, completed in September 2011, had far more detailed engineering and design. It cost $15,000 and took three months to build. Joel Jackson hopes to provide “the car for Africa”

“We drove it around Kenya and it performed well. When we drove it through Nairobi people routinely came up and asked where they could get one,” he said. For Mr Jackson the ability to buy a new car designed specifically for the African market will appeal to the growing African middle classes. He aims for the finished vehicle to be sold for $6,000, which, he said, is cheaper than many Kenyans pay for a second-hand car – a four-year-old Toyota, for example, sells for around $8,000.

Social impact
Second-hand cars in Kenya are expensive because customs, excise and VAT add a huge amount to the price tag.
“A brand new off-road vehicle will cost around $60,000,” said Mr Jackson. There are currently around 800,000 cars in Kenya, with around 80,000 sold each year. The vast majority of these are second-hand and many are bought to sustain a business rather than for personal use.

“People cram around 12 people into a car and run an informal public transport route,” Mr Jackson told the BBC. A car designed specifically for off-roading could be “an asset to run a business with”, he added.

“Mobius has the chance to change the transport network in Africa. Access to transportation means access to education and health services and that is the social impact of the project,” he added.

“My ambition is for this to be the car for Africa and I’d like to see hundreds of thousands of them produced each year,” he said. So far he has 15 pre-orders with another 100 in the pipeline. The production run this year will be modest, at around 50, but he hopes to scale that up to 400,000 a year in the next decade.

virgo: Ok, yet another "low tech" invention, made for Africa and only for Africans. Thank you [size=18pt]Massa[/size].

SimonAndal: A jalopy for Kenya woulda been a better name. Not every road in Africa is "dilapidated." Have you seen Enugu lately?

phreakabit:
Lol at the slave accent.

Btw I'd still pocket my low quality African millions and buy one of this cheap piece of crap. grin

fagamite: STupiddddddd africans . . . everything du/m/bed down for them.

virgo: Ok, yet another "low tech" invention, made for Africa and only for Africans. Thank you Massa.

maclatunji:

Hey! I commend the guy, if we Africans thought like this, we would have advanced in terms of technology and economy. These are the things people like Dangote should start looking at. We need to find local solutions to our own problems instead of waiting for the "developed world" to do so for us.

maclatunji:

To buttress my point, Porsche used to make tractors for farmers, they don't anymore! Start from somewhere and then improve! Most of us want to work for big Multinationals that were started by people just like you, when are we going to create ours? We need our own Toyotas and Hondas- Tunjis and Emekas.

virgo:

Tunji and Emekas? Nice

folowo: 9ja ppl should produce their own now maybe car price will drop. . Our engineer where are you

virgo: Ok, yet another "low tech" invention, made for Africa and only for Africans. Thank you Massa.

pato405: does anyone wonder if they ever come down to Africa to grasp an understanding of 'Africa' before manufacturing whatever contraption they conceptualise or is it just me.