Uncle Rwamiti leaves the e-mobility conference room and walks into the workshops, battery shops, petrol stations and boda stages where the transition will actually be lived.

Electric mobility sounds very different depending on where you are standing.

In the conference room, people speak of charging infrastructure, battery technology, investment, emissions, policy, manufacturing and the transition to cleaner transport.

The PowerPoint slides are impressive.

The future appears organised.

Uncle Rwamiti decided to leave the conference room.

He wanted to meet the people who may never attend an e-mobility conference but whose livelihoods could nevertheless be changed by everything being discussed inside it.

He began with a mechanic.

THE MAN WHO CAN HEAR AN ENGINE

Everyone around the neighbourhood knew Ssalongo.

He had repaired cars for more than twenty-five years.

There were things Ssalongo could tell you about a car before opening its bonnet.

Drive slowly into his workshop with an unusual knock and he would listen.

“Start it again.”

You started it.

“Accelerate slightly.”

You accelerated.

Then came the diagnosis.

Years of working on engines had created a remarkable library inside this man’s head.

No university awarded him a degree for it.

No one called it intellectual capital.

But it was knowledge.

More importantly, it was activated knowledge. It fed his family, educated children, paid rent and made him useful to hundreds of motorists.

Then Uncle Rwamiti asked him about hybrid cars.

Ssalongo smiled.

He knew a little.

He knew they had batteries considerably more complicated than the ordinary battery sitting under the bonnet.

He had heard about inverters.

He knew there were electrical systems one should not touch carelessly.

Electric vehicles?

He laughed.

“Mzee, those ones are computers!”

The laughter concealed something.

For twenty-five years, Ssalongo’s confidence had grown with experience.

Technology was now doing something unusual.

It was making an experienced man a beginner again.

Uncle Rwamiti became quiet.

What happens when technological progress doesn’t merely replace a machine but begins to devalue the knowledge surrounding the machine?

Who retrains Ssalongo?

Who tells him what to learn?

Who pays while he learns it?

And who even tells him that the transition has already begun?

THE BATTERY MAN

A short distance away was another familiar business.

Batteries lined the shelves.

35Ah.

45Ah.

70Ah.

100Ah.

Different brands. Different prices.

The battery dealer understood his trade.

A customer arrived complaining that his car struggled to start in the morning.

Test the battery.

Check charging.

Perhaps replace it.

Transaction completed.

Then Uncle Rwamiti asked:

“Do you work on hybrid batteries?”

The answer became less certain.

He had heard about them.

What about lithium batteries?

Yes, he knew they were becoming common.

Could he diagnose one?

Not really.

Repair one?

No.

Could he advise a customer whether an expensive hybrid battery actually required replacement?

That was another matter altogether.

Yet the shop was busy.

Customers were arriving.

Money was changing hands.

Nothing appeared wrong.

That troubled Uncle Rwamiti even more.

Disruption rarely sends you a letter announcing that your business model is becoming old.

Sometimes business continues normally while the foundations underneath it are quietly moving.

The battery man’s shelves were full.

But Uncle Rwamiti wondered:

“Can a man be standing successfully inside yesterday?”

THE PETROL STATION THAT EVERYONE PASSED

The next stop was a small petrol station.

Nothing glamorous.

A few pumps.

A small office.

Perhaps a tyre-pressure point.

Motorcycles came and went.

One boda rider bought UGX 5,000 of petrol.

Another bought UGX 8,000.

A taxi stopped.

Then a private car.

This was the rhythm on which the business survived.

Uncle Rwamiti stood watching.

Then imagine an electric motorcycle passing the station.

It doesn’t stop.

One electric boda means almost nothing.

Neither do ten.

Petrol vehicles will not disappear tomorrow morning.

Uganda will almost certainly live with different propulsion technologies alongside one another for quite some time.

So frightening the petrol-station owner with stories about his imminent extinction would be irresponsible.

But there is still a legitimate question.

Uncle Rwamiti turned towards the proprietor.

“My son, how many motorcycles must begin passing without stopping before you change what this place does?”

Twenty?

Two hundred?

Two thousand?

And when exactly should he act?

Before the customers disappear?

After?

Should he install charging?

Battery swapping?

A convenience store?

A café?

Vehicle services?

Something nobody has imagined yet?

The most difficult part of disruption is sometimes not knowing whether change is coming.

It is knowing when the change has become large enough to justify your response.

Move too early and you can lose money.

Move too late and you can lose the business.

The small petrol-station owner doesn’t have a strategy department.

He doesn’t employ mobility consultants.

He has today’s sales figures, tomorrow’s bills and his eyes.

He watches the road.

THEN UNCLE RWAMITI SAT WITH THE BODA RIDERS

Here the conversation changed completely.

Try explaining decarbonisation to a man whose first concern tomorrow morning is earning enough money to feed his household.

The boda rider may certainly care about the environment.

But his decision about an electric motorcycle will eventually encounter much more immediate questions.

How much does it cost?

Can I finance it?

How far can I travel?

Where do I charge?

Can I swap the battery?

How long does that take?

What happens when the battery becomes weak?

Who owns the battery?

Who repairs the motorcycle?

How much will repairs cost?

What happens when it breaks down far from the charging or swapping network?

And finally:

After paying everybody, how much money remains in my pocket tonight?

Suddenly Uncle Rwamiti understood something.

Electric mobility looks technological from the conference room.

From the boda stage, it looks economic.

From the mechanic’s workshop, it looks occupational.

From the battery shop, it looks commercial.

From the petrol station, it looks strategic—and perhaps eventually existential.

These are not different transitions.

They are different experiences of the same transition.

THE PEOPLE WHO DON’T ATTEND THE CONFERENCE

There is nothing inherently wrong with the conference room.

Governments must plan.

Engineers must engineer.

Investors must invest.

Researchers must research.

Manufacturers must manufacture.

Environmental consequences matter.

Energy security matters.

Infrastructure matters.

But there is danger when those discussing a transition become so fascinated by where society is going that they stop looking at the people standing where society is coming from.

Ssalongo’s twenty-five years of mechanical experience still matter.

The battery dealer’s business still matters.

The petrol-station owner’s investment still matters.

The boda rider’s daily income certainly matters.

They should not become footnotes in somebody else’s PowerPoint presentation about the future.

PROGRESS FOR WHOM?

Uncle Rwamiti is not against electric mobility.

Nor is he campaigning for it.

That is not his question.

His question is more uncomfortable:

When we call something progress, have we asked how that progress looks from the other side?

Every major technological transition creates opportunity.

But transitions also redistribute knowledge, skills, capital and advantage.

Some people discover that what they know has suddenly become extremely valuable.

Others discover that knowledge accumulated over thirty years buys progressively less.

New businesses appear.

Old businesses adapt.

Some disappear.

New occupations emerge.

Others shrink.

And because these changes don’t happen overnight, the people affected may not recognise what is happening until it is well underway.

That is why the ethical conversation around e-mobility cannot begin and end with vehicles.

It must include people.

DON’T THROW AWAY SSALONGO

Perhaps the mechanic doesn’t need sympathy.

Perhaps he needs a bridge.

His twenty-five years of experience haven’t suddenly become useless because an electric vehicle contains fewer familiar mechanical components.

He already understands vehicles.

He understands customers.

He understands failure.

He understands diagnosis.

He understands the difference between what the customer reports and what the machine is actually doing.

Those capabilities have value.

But they may need to be combined with new knowledge.

Electrical safety.

Diagnostics.

Electronics.

Battery systems.

Software.

Hybrid powertrains.

High-voltage systems.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply replacing yesterday’s mechanic with tomorrow’s technician.

It is asking whether yesterday’s mechanic can be helped to cross into tomorrow.

The same applies to the battery dealer.

And the petrol-station owner.

And the boda rider.

The transition should not merely introduce them to new machines.

It should help them understand what the new machines mean for their lives.

UNCLE RWAMITI WALKS HOME

By evening, Uncle Rwamiti had heard enough.

He imagined returning to that beautiful conference room.

The presentation would still say:

THE FUTURE OF ELECTRIC MOBILITY

But Uncle Rwamiti would want to add one slide.

No graphs.

No statistics.

No photographs of futuristic charging stations.

Just four people:

A mechanic.

A battery seller.

A petrol-station owner.

A boda rider.

And underneath them, one question:

“Have these people been invited into the future we are designing?”

Because technological change is not ethical simply because the technology itself is beneficial.

A transition becomes human when we also ask who must relearn, who must reinvest, who carries the risk, who gets the opportunity—and who may quietly be left behind.

The electric vehicle will come with new technology.

The mechanic can learn.

The battery dealer can adapt.

The petrol station can evolve.

The boda rider can make his calculations.

But somebody must recognise that these people are not obstacles standing in the path of progress.

They are part of the society progress is supposed to serve.

And perhaps that is where Uganda’s real e-mobility conversation should begin.

Not only in the boardroom.

Not only at the conference.

Not only inside government.

But also under the mango tree beside the workshop, behind the counter of the battery shop, at the little petrol station and among the men waiting for passengers at the boda stage.

Because if you really want to understand a technological revolution, Uncle Rwamiti says:

Don’t only ask the people building the future.

Ask the people whose present it is about to change

Uncle Rwamiti
Making Sense of Change Through Ethical Storytelling