Greater Kampala · 1 km grid · October 2026

Where electric bodas and electric cars can take hold, and where their swap stations and chargers should go

A public-data atlas of EV adoption suitability across Greater Kampala: 60 proposed battery-swap sites for e-bodas, 30 proposed fast-charging sites for e-cars, the economics for riders, drivers and car owners, and the terrain, flood and grid checks on every site. Scores rank places against each other; they are not adoption probabilities.

Built without operator data. Only 3 swap/charging stations are mapped in OpenStreetMap, and Uganda imported only 17 fully electric cars from 2022 to April 2024.
Atlas

The map

Build a network

Watch the city grow

WorldPop population per km², morphing from the 2020 estimate through 2025 to the 2030 projection.

Hover a cell for its values. Grey cells have too little mapped activity or population to score. E-boda rider saving assumes the first 30 swap sites are built; e-ride-hail saving assumes the first 10 fast chargers. Drivers detour to the nearest site by road. Satellite: Sentinel-2, .

Rider economics

Does an e-boda pay for a Kampala rider?

Daily running cost of a petrol boda against an e-boda on pay-per-charge battery swapping. Move the sliders to test your own numbers. Bike purchase and loan payments are not included.

–saved per day with an e-boda

Daily cost breakdown

Saving as the petrol price moves

Uncertainty: 5,000 draws of every input

Which input matters most

Inputs and where they come from

Car economics

Does an electric car pay in Kampala?

Five-year cost of owning a used imported electric car against a comparable petrol car, including the purchase premium. Ride-hail and taxi cars drive 4–5 times further than private cars, which changes the answer.

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Annual running cost

Five-year value as the purchase premium moves

Uncertainty: 5,000 draws of every input

Which input matters most

E-car inputs and where they come from

Proposed locations

Every proposed site, with its operating plan and site checks

Build order, catchment by road, daily demand, equipment and grid connection, slope and height above the valley floor. Swap demand assumes 25% of Greater Kampala's 400,000 motorcycles go electric; charger demand assumes 2,000 electric ride-hail cars.

Read this before using the numbers

What this atlas can and cannot say

Suitability, not adoption

Indices are weighted percentile ranks of public features with judgement-based weights. The robustness layer shows how often a cell stays in the top 10% when those weights are redrawn 1,000 times. Turning scores into adoption probabilities needs operator swap volumes or registrations.

The station gap is unknown

OpenStreetMap holds almost none of the 350+ swap stations in Uganda, so the proposed network is greenfield: where to build if starting today. Once a station inventory exists, the same model treats existing stations as already built.

Proxies have blind spots

OSM activity reflects mapping effort. The wealth and home-charging proxies both come from satellite building footprints, so they move together by construction, and they misread 1 km cells that mix estates with hospitals or airstrips. WorldPop figures are modelled; 2030 is a projection.

E-cars are forward-looking

Uganda imported only 17 fully electric cars from 2022 to April 2024, so e-car demand is a scenario, not a measurement. Purchase premium, public charging price and maintenance are assumptions to replace with dealer quotes and driver surveys.

Grid data are partial

OpenStreetMap maps a small part of the UEDCL distribution network, so sites are graded by the connection their load needs, not by distance to a mapped line. Utility feeder and transformer data would turn the grid classes into a real capacity check.

Operations are scenarios

Swap volumes assume a share of Greater Kampala's 400,000 motorcycles go electric and all riders use their nearest site. Cabinet throughput, pack size and charger utilisation are assumptions. Real networks need denser sites than a coverage plan.