Startup Tackles Rural Transportation Problem in Africa
mobiusmotors.com
mobiusmotors.com
This looks like a 4-8 person SUV, which would be inherently more expensive to run regardless of the costs. I would imagine that the kind of vehicle most useful for an impoverished area would be a bus (as in, the kind of vehicle most third world people travel in already). Toyota and Mercedes already manufacture small, rugged buses that seem to make it to the third world market.
Further, it's hard to beat the price of a used American school bus - $2000-$5000 for a thirty-person vehicle. American school districts discard a lot of buses after a few years use due to safety regulations. Oddly enough, this vehicle class already emphasizes safety and economy. That's why you see them in Central America frequently, along with the Toyota and Mercedes mini-buses.
Also, large manufacturers already have large parts networks through-out the world. It seems unlikely a start-up could duplicate that.
I posted this article to highlight the growing entrepreneurial confidence in Africa (Kenya in this case).
I'm not an expert on African roads. I know that American School buses do quite well on the rough, mountainous terrain of Central and South America. They are tough, simple vehicles and ride fairly high off the ground.
Also, consumers in China, India or where-ever undoubtedly want cars. Despite this, I think it is unfortunate for automobile-centric development to progress. In the US, the private automobile has had terrible environmental track record, a terrible safety record and has enabled a geography of social isolation (suburbia and sprawl). As the most energy-intensive form of transportation, the private automobile seems, at the very least, to have pushed world energy production capacities to the brink. Reproducing this trend around the world seems undesirable.
School buses might not have safety belts but the combination of machinery and procedures they do use apparently works very well. School bus driving is very regulated.
Cars and other personal vehicles have generally had a poor safety record. Traffic accidents are still a leading cause of death in the US, though they have gone down. What is the fundamental reason for this? A personal vehicle has the problem of a random person rather than a professional driver driving it. This leaves one open to drunk, unqualified, distracted, angry, suicidal or whatever drivers (of course, you can that problem with a professional but it's quite likely to be less so). Getting more personal vehicles into an area that is relatively more lawless would only magnify their problems.
Thus more personal vehicles would not increase the safety of third world roads. Instead, increasing bus driver training, improving roads and similar less sexy measures seem in order.
It's an established platform.