African battery-swapping giant Spiro has lined up another hardware supplier with Yadea, the world’s largest electric two-wheeler manufacturer. In an announcement made three days ago, Spiro said that they will partner with Yadea to deploy more electric motorcycles in Africa and also to develop Africa-specific products.
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Cool copy-paste from the Press Release
“The strategic partnership combines Yadea’s global manufacturing and R&D capabilities with Spiro’s operational network and battery-swapping ecosystem across seven countries. Together, the companies aim to build a scalable, commercially sustainable EV framework serving millions of commercial fleet operators, delivery services, logistics providers, and daily commuters in Africa’s fastest-growing mobility markets.
Under the agreement, Yadea will supply electric two-wheelers and related EV products tailored to Spiro’s expanding regional markets, while Spiro will integrate the vehicles into its proprietary battery-swapping and energy infrastructure. The companies will also co-develop customized two-wheeler platforms engineered specifically for local road conditions and commercial utility across Africa.”
Who Sells the Motorcycles?
That’s the big question. Is Spiro selling Yadea motorcycles under the Spiro brand name, or is Yadea selling Yadea motorcycles under the Yadea brand name while running on Spiro batteries? We think it’s the latter, but it’s not clear from the press release.
Till now, Spiro has been a full-stack operator in Africa, doing everything from assembling motorcycles from Chinese kits to selling them, financing, assembling the batteries, and running the battery-swapping infrastructure. It has used Chinese hardware supplier-partners like Horwin and Oxwin, which till now have been responsible for all the Spiro motorcycles deployed in Africa.
So does Yadea get added as another hardware supplier to this mix? Or is Yadea ousting Oxwin from the Spiro business? We have observed that Spiro has an insatiable appetite to deploy motorcycles as fast as possible across the African landscape, and it becomes difficult for any Chinese hardware supplier to scale as fast. This also becomes challenging because there are other promising markets like Brazil, which have also started deploying the same Chinese motorcycles. In that case, it is only natural that Spiro would look to expand its supplier base or maybe move to someone who can scale fast.
Not to mention, Spiro is flush with cash and has a new Group CEO, who knows how to scale fast, at the helm.
InsightEV – Global Electric Mobility
This is not the first Yadea in Africa
It is interesting to note that this is not the first Yadea foray into Africa. They are pretty strong in some markets like Ethiopia, where they sell slow-speed electric two-wheelers under their own brand name and through their own showrooms.
Also in June 2026, ARC Ride announced that Yadea was deploying motorcycles on the ARC Ride network. This was done on the sidelines of the 27th Auto Expo in Africa, during which Yadea also unveiled the KIFA, an African-market-specific electric motorcycle.
It is likely that Spiro will get a version of the same motorcycle modified to take the Spiro batteries.
Omega Seiki Relationship?
As we were putting this story to bed, out popped a post on LinkedIn from Dr. Uday Narang, the CEO of Omega Seiki Mobility, an India-based electric three-wheeler startup.
For all intents and purposes, this seems like a case of an OEM deploying vehicles on the Spiro network in Africa, but then Omega Seiki’s sales in India remain under the 1000 units per month mark, so it remains to be seen how they find the bandwidth to deploy in Africa.
Senior Management Speak
“When we launched Spiro, our mission was to lay the energy and mobility foundation for Africa’s green transition. Our strategic partnership with Yadea is a major endorsement of our execution to date and opens fantastic opportunities to jointly pioneer the next era of electric mobility in emerging markets” – Gagan Gupta, Founder of Spiro and Chairman of Equitane.
“Africa’s shift to electric mobility is accelerating and this partnership helps us meet that demand at scale. By bringing together Yadea’s manufacturing strength with Spiro’s electric mobility ecosystem and operating experience across Africa, we are compressing the timeline to clean transport — helping thousands more riders switch to affordable EVs faster and multiplying our climate impact across the continent.” – Anant Badjatya, Group CEO of Spiro
“Africa represents a massive frontier for zero-emission transport. Our mission to reduce carbon emissions has reached a powerful milestone through this partnership with Spiro. Together, we are combining global innovation with local infrastructure to deliver scalable and sustainable mobility solutions that serve millions of riders and transform Africa’s urban transit.” – Wang Jiazhong, Senior Vice President of Yadea Technology Group