Lagride, the Lagos State–backed e-hailing service, is making an aggressive play for the city’s ride-hailing crown. Fresh off a media day in Alausa, the company rolled out 100 new electric vehicles (EVs) and set an audacious target: capture at least 70% of Lagos’ e-hailing market as it scales to 5,000 cars in three years, more than 3,000 of them electric. The push is part of Lagos’ broader plan to modernize transport, cut emissions, and bring greater reliability to everyday mobility.
At the briefing, PR and Communications Lead Ifeanyi Abraham framed the expansion as Lagos aligning with global hubs like Dubai, where regulated, government-backed fleets set the pace on safety, affordability, and service standards. “We’re moving decisively in the same direction,” he said—through professional driver training, public-serving technology, and vehicles that protect the environment. Executive Director Adeniyi Saliu tied the EV rollout to the state’s economic transformation agenda: shorter wait times, cleaner air, and higher service reliability at peak periods, with thousands of jobs created across training, maintenance, charging, and operations.
The new EVs are designed for Lagos realities. Each car offers an estimated 333-kilometre range, enough to cover a day’s work or even a Lagos–Ibadan round trip without recharging—tackling range anxiety head-on. Rapid charging in as little as 30 minutes keeps cars in rotation, and Lagride says it is planning routes and shifts around the city’s growing charging footprint to minimize downtime. The company will also refresh its rider app to let users choose an EV or a petrol car at booking, giving customers control and helping Lagride balance supply across the fleet.
Under the hood, Lagride is betting that operational discipline—not just procurement—wins the market. Leaders emphasized a maintenance culture built on preventive servicing, data-guided diagnostics, quality parts, and trained technicians. That approach, they argue, is what keeps uptime high, trips predictable, and vehicles in good condition—critical differentiators in a megacity where trust is earned on the road. Safety sits in the same bucket: onboarding, training, and compliance are treated as infrastructure rather than slogans, with trip traceability, vehicle monitoring, and enforced standards forming the spine of the service.
The company’s business model is deliberately pro-driver. Beyond steady earnings, Lagride offers pathways to ownership—including Drive-to-Own and Drive-to-Earn—with flexible tenors from 18 months to four years. As scale increases and EV operating costs (electricity vs. petrol, fewer moving parts) compound, management expects more room to pass value to drivers and riders alike. Saliu summed up the ambition plainly: “Our plan is to take at least 70% of this market because of the scale of our investments in assets, infrastructure, and people.”
The rollout also reflects deeper institutional backing. Senior officials, including Gen. Chukwuemeka Udaya (RTD), Senior Special Adviser to the Chairman on Government Relations and Business Development, and DIG Adeleke Adeyinka (RTD), Head of Compliance and Enforcement, underscored the enforcement and governance framework behind the programme. And at its core is the long-running partnership with CIG Motors. Chief Diana Chen, Chairman of CIG Motors and Lagride, has championed a vision that blends driver dignity, environmental sustainability, and service excellence—visible in each fleet addition, training academy, and operational standard. A 2023 joint venture between Lagos State and CIG provided for 5,000 new vehicles, including 1,000 EVs, laying the groundwork for today’s scale-up.
Strategically, Lagride’s EV push is a shot across the bows of incumbents Uber, Bolt, and inDrive. The company believes that a regulated, safety-forward model with a dense, well-maintained EV fleet can reset expectations on reliability and price. If the maintenance and charging models hold, EVs should spend more time on the road and less in the queue—translating to shorter wait times for riders and better unit economics for drivers.
None of this is purely about optics. In a city of over 20 million, every marginal improvement—quieter cabins, fewer tailpipe emissions, predictable pickups—adds up. The pitch is simple: make rides cleaner, calmer, and more dependable, and Lagos will move better. With 100 EVs already live and thousands more on the way, Lagride is turning that pitch into a timetable. Whether it can translate scale into sustained market leadership will hinge on execution: keeping chargers working, cars maintained, drivers trained, and standards enforced—ride after ride.
