Kenya’s Mobius Motors, which started manufacturing rugged, affordable SUVs designed for Africa’s challenging roads a decade ago, has chosen to cease operations due to financial difficulties.
“At a meeting of the shareholders held on 5 August 2024, it was resolved to place the company under liquidation as per Section 393(1) (b) of the Insolvency Act and appoint KVSK Sastry as the liquidator to wind up the company,” Nicolas Guibert, Mobius director, said in a notice.
Mobius, founded in 2011 by Joel Jackson, who experienced Africa’s challenging roads while working for a forestry company in Kenya, discovered that tax hikes in the East African country made its business model unsustainable, Reuters reported.
The owners considered relocating production to another country, but that option was dismissed due to the logistical challenges of moving the existing assembly line from Nairobi, the shareholder added.
Mobius, which raised $56 million across five funding rounds, manufactured affordable SUVs aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in infrastructure, agribusiness, and supply sectors.
Mobius initially produced a boxy, no-frills SUV designed for the modest budgets of African consumers, priced at 1.3 million Kenyan shillings, equivalent to about $13,000 at the time, which was roughly half the price of an imported second-hand SUV.
Mobius later introduced updated editions with additional features. The company, whose investors include Britain’s Playfair Capital, was part of a broader initiative by investors and governments across the continent to foster job creation through home-grown vehicle manufacturers.
This effort included other ventures such as Uganda’s Kiira Motors, Ghana’s Kantanka, and Nigeria-based Innoson Motors.
Similarly, global automakers like Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp and Germany’s Volkswagen AG increased their investments in markets such as Kenya and Rwanda to capitalize on the continent’s growing economies and rising consumer demand.
All these home-grown manufacturers faced similar challenges: intense competition from second-hand imports abroad.
Mobius’s vision is to weave built-for-purpose vehicles into the fabric of the growing African economy and become the mass-market car of Africa, but this vision was cut short.
