Olanrewaju Ogunkunle, co-founder of Revocube Energies and Group Chief Executive Officer of Revocubelinks Group Limited revealed that electric vehicles are easier to maintain and more cost-effective than combustion engine vehicles.

“I’ve been driving electric vehicles for months. I think between the first two or three months, I have done over 5,000 kilometres; it’s a different world entirely. Electric vehicles are easier to maintain and cost-effective,” he stated.

Ogunkunle made the disclosure on Friday, April 06, 2025, while speaking on Arise News’ Global Business Report with Rotus Oddiri.

Responding to a question on China’s entry into the electric vehicles market, he said, “What China has brought to the game is that they are not just playing in the luxury space. They are playing in the high-end markert and also in the low-end market. So, they are attacking almost every segment of the market.”

What do you make of China’s dominance and how it’s flooding the market?

“One thing that China has gotten right, is quality and cost. When you leave people to make the decision where quality and cost are properly matched, they will definitely go towards where they can get the best price at the best quality.”

“On China’s inroad into Nigeria, Ogunkunle stated, “One thing that’s clear in Nigeria is that we still have shortage of vehicles. We shouldn’t be deceived by what Lagos is like, where we have a lot of vehicles on the streets; so we assume that’s how we have cars all over the country. There are still a lot of states that still have shortage of transportation, especially mass transit, and if China can come in to fill that gap, I believe they will be welcome. They are a lot of elctric vehicles from China that are in the Nigerian market and they are scaling very fast.”

What’s the future for electric vehicles in Nigeria when we have volatile power supply?

“That excuse that we don’t have power in the country; but our phones are still on, our laptops are still on. I think people have really been fixated on what they see in the movies with fast chargers. So, they feel that’s the only way to charge electric vehicles. Most electric vehicles have two charging modes – the regular low-charging mode that takes eight to nine hours, and that’s suitable for charging at night until the next day or I when at work, plug my car and when I am done, I can move on. And you don’t have to charge every day. The smallest electric car has at least 200 kilometres of range and if you are just commuting intracity, that should be good for about a day or two.

“So, electricity is not really a major problem compared to the cost of buying fossil fuel. Also, remember that electric vehicles, you are not changing engine oil, you are not changing filters, you are not servicing filters. Combustion engines have a lot of moving parts, you have the crankshaft, the gear system, you have the alternator and when there are more components involved in a system, it’s bound to have errors.”

Speaking further he added that “Nigerians are not considering electric vehicles because of greeen compatibility or climate change; it’s about cost. I bought my electric vehicle the second day I spent about eight-six thousand naira filling my Tundra truck and the next day the eighty-six thousand naira was gone.”

Why aren’t western EV brands moved towards Africa like the Chinese?

“I think it’s cost. If you see a lot of Chinese cars that are adopted in Nigeria most of them are not the luxury vehicles because those who can afford the Tesla Cybertuck and other advanced models, they can also afford to have a Maybach, Range Rovers and other exotic cars. So if they want to get an electric vehicle, they would want to maintain the same level of luxury but the market I believe would scale in Nigeria is the lower-end of electric vehicles where Nigerians can afford to buy electric vehicles as low as fifteen to twenty million naira, competing with even fairly used internal combution engine vehicles.”

How is China able to lower the cost of solar panels and inverter batteries while increasing the quality?

“I think it’s a brilliant one. In the early days when you have some of these Chinese products, the fear is longevity. Will this inverter blow up at my backyard in the next few hours?

“Over the years, we have compared these Chinese products with renowned German and American brands, and you open up the components and you see it’s the same level of protection, integration, and even software automation integrated into these Chinese products. And they’ve managed to do all of this while mainitianing the quality at almost twenty to thirty percent of the cost of their competitors. How they’ve done it is possibly through subsidies, cheaper labour costs and some other materials that they’ve gotten access to. And China has really advanced automation, and automating the entire process drives down their cost of production.

How can Nigeria improve the electricity situation in the country?

Government is actively attacking it on all fronts, especially from reforms, we can see that state governments are taking over power infrastructure. Electricity supply will improve in Nigeria but it will take some time and by the time it’s done and improved, the cost might be slightly higher because investors are putting their funds and they need their money back. Our major problem is not just energy generation, also remember that we have problems with our transmission lines. Our transmission lines are old and weak, so if we are celebrating the generation of power, how do we deliver that power to the consumer? So, that’s why a lot of businesses are now considering staying off the grid and generating power for themselves to make sure that they can stabilise thier business without depending on general power supply.

Do you think renewables can scale more businesses?

“Renewables is actually scaling businesses, it’s saving the day. Before now, about five, six years ago, when these renewables were still at the early stages, lithium batteries were not mainstream, it took a while to get your return on investment, some were even losses. A lot of business have tried those models and they lost money and would never want to try renewables again. But the game is changing now. We’ve seen systems that we’ve installed and they’ve had return on investment in twelve to thriteen months instead of five to ten years. Some of them are making the cost back and even with some profit within a maximum of eighteen months because there are a lot of Chinese products with top quality at lower cost.”

You can watch the entire discourse via the link below: