Every prospective EV buyer asks the same first question — where will I charge? — and almost every answer they have heard is either evangelism or fear. Two years of running electric fleets in three Nigerian cities has given us something better than opinions: telematics. Here is what the data says.
Home is the filling station
Across our fleet and private customers, 88% of charging happens at home or depot, overnight, on AC power. A 7.4kW wallbox restores about 45km of range per hour; parked from 9pm to 6am, that is a full daily commute several times over. The practical requirement is not a national charging network — it is a dedicated circuit, a competent installer, and load management so the wallbox defers to your inverter during outages. That last detail matters: our installations meter the house and throttle the car automatically when the battery bank is carrying the building.
The grid is unreliable; charging is not
The obvious objection — NEPA — is real but overstated. An EV is not a freezer: it does not need continuous power, only enough energy across the night. Band A areas average sufficient supply hours for full overnight charging on all but the worst weeks. For everyone else, the arithmetic of solar pairing is compelling: 6kWp of panels generates roughly 150km of driving per day of sunshine. Several of our customers now drive on sunlight in the most literal sense, and their cost per kilometre embarrasses petrol by a factor of eight.
Public charging: thinner than Lagos, better than rumour
Public DC charging in Nigeria remains sparse — our own network plus a handful of hotel and mall installations. But the fleet data shows public charging is a convenience layer, not a dependency: it accounted for under 7% of energy delivered last year, concentrated on interstate trips. For Abuja–Kaduna or Lagos–Ibadan runs, one mid-route DC stop of 20–30 minutes covers the corridor comfortably in a 400km-class car.
What we tell buyers
Buy the range you need for your worst regular week, not your annual village trip — rent or take the hybrid for that. Install the wallbox before the car arrives. Pair with solar if you have the roof. And ignore anyone who talks about charging without showing you numbers: the infrastructure question has answers now, and they are measured in kilowatt-hours, not vibes.
Every vehicle listing on this site shows real-world range, not brochure range. Book a test drive and bring your commute with you.
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