Clean Corridors (EV Minibus Conversion Pilot)

Overview

In most Nigerian cities, daily movement runs on minibuses. They carry a large share of urban trips, they run long hours on predictable routes, and they do it on petrol and diesel engines that are expensive to fuel, costly to maintain, and concentrated sources of urban air pollution precisely where people are densest.

Clean Corridors is our exploratory pilot asking a focused question: can existing minibuses be converted to electric drive, affordably and safely, on Nigeria’s busiest urban corridors?

Why conversion, not replacement

New electric vehicles remain out of reach for most transport operators, and replacing a working vehicle wastes the value already embodied in it. Conversion keeps the body, the seats, and the operator’s livelihood, and replaces only the drivetrain. Internationally, retrofit programmes for commercial fleets are an established pathway into electric mobility for exactly this reason; the open question is what the model looks like under Nigerian conditions of cost, charging, and duty cycle.

Minibuses are also unusually well suited to electrification. They run fixed, repeated routes with predictable daily distances, which is precisely the pattern batteries handle best, and their high daily mileage means fuel savings accumulate quickly.

What the pilot will examine

This project is at the exploratory stage, and we are treating that honestly. Before any vehicle is converted, the pilot needs rigorous answers on:

• Technical feasibility: which minibus platforms are suitable, what battery capacity a typical route requires, and what a safe, certifiable conversion involves
• Economics: conversion cost against fuel and maintenance savings, and what financing would make it viable for an operator
• Charging: where and how vehicles charge, including the role of solar charging infrastructure
• Regulation and safety: roadworthiness certification, insurance, and standards for converted vehicles
• The operator’s reality: earnings, downtime tolerance, and what would make a driver or owner say yes

Current status

Clean Corridors is in early development: scoping, desk research, and conversations with people who know the transport sector from the inside. It is deliberately sequenced behind our energy access and training programmes, and it connects to them: the technicians who will convert and maintain electric vehicles are the kind of workforce SolarLearn exists to build.

Work with us

We want to hear from transport unions and operators, EV and conversion engineers, urban mobility researchers, and funders interested in clean transport in African cities. If the questions above are your questions too, write to info@celi.org.ng.

Status: In development, exploratory stage. Last updated July 2026.