The automobile industry in Ghana is male-dominated but a team of Ghanaian female engineers is embracing this frontier and changing the status quo.
Solartaxi Ghana
Solartaxi Ghana, a green energy automobile start-up in the country has created the platform for a team of young female engineers to support the mission of finding greener solutions in the automobile industry.
Catherine Ama Wilson and Belinda Akaba together with nine others are taking Ghana’s automobile industry by storm by building solar and electric automobiles under Solartaxi.
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‘I am the type of person who is always on the move to do something new. After hearing that we have a company making electric vehicles, I said, why not come here and try my talent to see whether I can build myself in other areas”, said Mary Kudaya, a mechanical engineer at Solartaxi Ghana in an interview monitored by Ghana Talks Business.
”Moving forward, I also want to stand on my own, have my firm that I will employ a lot of ladies into the engineering field”, said Belinda Akaba, an electrical engineer.
Despite the platform provided by the female engineers, SolarTaxi Ghana faces major challenge which its co-founder George Appiah, explained.
“We have engaged with the consumer power unit of the electricity company of Ghana, on the possibility of charging all our units across the country. But as a local assembling company that assembles electric vehicles here, being the bikes, the tricycles, and also we are moving towards the cars, we don’t have that support yet. Our biggest challenge has to do with the taxes that we pay. That is not something we are getting support for,’’ he said.
In a press briefing last year, the Growth Associate of the company, Eugene Amponsah, made it known that electric vehicles had the potential to mitigate climate change and provide affordable transportation to Ghanaians.
“They don’t produce fumes so we mitigate climate change. So, when we have more of these cars in the system, that would control the impact on the environment. We are trying to make a major statement in the transportation industry, we know that there is a huge influx of a lot of fuel cars in the system. We are also much concerned about climate change and with that, we want to try and help the environment by introducing cars that are efficient in terms of servicing, cost of fuel, and all that,” he said.
Recent launch by Solartaxi
Solartaxi Ghana launched the Cherry Tiggo 3xe 480 EV SUVs last year with the following specifications
53.6 kWh battery good for a range of about 401 km (NEDC)
95 kW motor producing 280 Nm of torque
Top speed of 151 km/h
Dimensions of the Tiggo 3xe 480 EV SUV are 4200 mm long, 1760 mm wide, and 1570 mm high.
The wheelbase of the Tiggo 3xe 480 EV SUV is 2555 mm, and it has a ground clearance of 150 mm.
Besides electric cars, the company produces other products such as solar-electric bikes, tricycles, and charging stations.
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