Kenya’s E-Mobility Knowledge Roadmap: Research Priorities to Support Economic and System Transformation

Kenya’s e-mobility transition is often discussed through a relatively narrow lens focused on vehicle adoption, charging infrastructure, and the fiscal implications of declining fuel tax revenues. The consultations that informed this knowledge roadmap pointed to a much broader opportunity. Transport electrification has the potential to strengthen energy security, improve small business productivity, reduce foreign exchange pressures, enhance utility performance, support industrial development, create new workforce opportunities, improve public health, and bolster long-term economic competitiveness. The challenge facing Kenya—and many emerging markets navigating their own transition pathways—is therefore not simply one of technology adoption, but of understanding and managing a complex economic transformation for which data and evidence will be critical. This knowledge roadmap is the product of an iterative consultation process involving government agencies, industry, financiers, researchers, and development partners. Initial discussions were expanded through a roundtable convened during New York Climate Week in September 2025 and subsequently refined through a multi-stakeholder validation workshop in Nairobi in May 2026, which also benefited from regional perspectives shared by colleagues from Rwanda and Ethiopia. In all, 65 organizations weighed in on its development. The result is a synthesis of the questions, evidence gaps, and research priorities identified as most important to supporting Kenya’s e-mobility transition.