Nigeria’s lithium key to domestic battery industry growth – Spiro boss

The Chief Executive Officer of Mobility at Spiro, Kaushik Burman, speaks to ARINZE NWAFOR about leveraging Nigeria’s industrial policy, how to optimise local manufacturing, energy transition financing, and battery value chains, amid the firm’s $215m battery recycling investment

Please provide a brief overview of your company. In what ways does Spiro align with Nigeria’s drive to promote local industrialisation, manufacturing growth, and value addition within the economy?

Spiro is Africa’s largest electric mobility company. Across seven markets, Nigeria included, we have deployed more than 100,000 electric motorbikes, over 2,500 battery-swapping stations, and completed more than 30 million swaps.

We’re not simply a two-wheeler company; we build the energy and technology infrastructure that makes electric mobility work at scale.

Where Nigeria is concerned, our fit is straightforward: we manufacture and add value in the country rather than import finished products. We recruit and train the local workforce.

Nigeria already hosts a local assembly and our battery-recycling infrastructure, which makes it a natural anchor for that industrialisation agenda.

Nigeria is endowed with substantial lithium deposits and other critical minerals. Does Spiro see potential for incorporating locally processed minerals into its battery supply chain as part of its operations in the country?

Nigeria’s lithium is a major opportunity to build a domestic value chain. Cells are sourced from China today, but localisation of cell manufacturing in Africa is something we look into closely.

Spiro holds 30+ proprietary patents, including in battery repurposing and second-life storage, with additional value to be captured through a local lithium chain.

What policy measures and regulatory incentives are needed to attract investment in the development of a fully integrated battery value chain in Nigeria?

A framework that rewards domestic value addition over raw exports, and that gives investors the scale certainty to commit. This picture is within reach: Spiro’s parts and batteries are already increasingly assembled on the continent. Policy that prices in local processing, paired with financing access, can turn Made in Africa into a reality.

Does Spiro’s $215m funding package encompass plans to establish electric vehicle assembly operations or manufacture EV components in Nigeria, in addition to its battery recycling initiatives?

The raise reinforces our industrial footprint and manufacturing capacity across the continent, not just the swap network.

We already manufacture in the markets we operate in, including Nigeria, bringing in some components and producing and assembling the rest locally, with a rising share made on the ground.

Recycling is in place; the next step is deepening assembly and component manufacturing. Nigeria is also a very interesting market in terms of its composition (two- and three-wheelers).

How does Spiro plan to support and align with Nigeria’s automotive and industrial development policies, particularly efforts aimed at reducing reliance on imports and boosting local production?

Import dependence is the problem we exist to solve. Africa spends over USD150bn a year on fuel, much of it imported (in some markets, 100 per cent), which drains foreign exchange and forces costly subsidies. Every rider who switches to electric trims that bill.

Our industrial principle runs in the same direction: promote added value on the continent. That convergence, cutting fuel imports while building locally, is precisely where a national industrialisation policy and our model meet.

What incentives, regulatory changes, or policy reforms are required to make Nigeria a more attractive destination for electric vehicle manufacturing investment?

Three levers: industrial policy that genuinely rewards local production, access to long-term financing, and real public-private partnerships. The technology question is settled; electric mobility is commercially proven and affordable.

What policy reforms or regulatory changes are likely to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles in Nigeria?

In Rwanda, electric motorbikes represent over 90 per cent of new bikes sold. The reforms aren’t about making EVs work; they’re about how fast a country captures the upside.

Battery-swapping infrastructure demands substantial upfront investment. What financing models or funding mechanisms can make such projects commercially sustainable and scalable across African markets?

It starts with how you structure the capital. We put in significant founder capital first, proved the model, then attracted institutional investors who treat batteries as infrastructure assets rather than a venture bet, a stack that blends equity with climate-labelled debt.

We are extremely proud to welcome a diversified pool of investors, reflecting international investors’ confidence in the continent’s growth trajectory. That investor profile, long-term, infrastructure-minded institutional capital, is what makes a capital-heavy swap network financeable.

How do Nigeria’s high borrowing costs and limited availability of long-term financing impact the expansion and scalability of EV infrastructure across the country?

Financing is one of the real constraints, but electric mobility helps solve it directly. Two-wheelers were historically hard to finance, and where credit existed, it ran 45-60 per cent, largely because lenders couldn’t trace the asset or recover it.

An electric bike is trackable, and repayment can be collected daily at the swap station rather than once a month. That de-risks the loan and pulls a 45-50 per cent rate down toward 15-16 per cent. High rates and short tenors are a genuine constraint in markets like Nigeria, but the swap model is itself the mechanism that makes lending cheaper and longer.

Are there ongoing engagements with Nigerian development finance institutions, commercial banks, or pension fund managers to mobilise funding and support the growth of the electric vehicle ecosystem?

We are actively engaging financial institutions to support our E-mobility growth in Nigeria. Further to that, we are into B2B partnerships with the likes of Max to fast-track EV adoption in Nigeria.

QUOTE:

“The technology question is settled; electric mobility is commercially proven and affordable”

PHOTO CAPTION:

Chief Executive Officer of Mobility at Spiro, Kaushik Burman.A