Kantanka Motors of Ghana is surging in the automaker industry
- Brother Trice | Instagram @MajorityReport
- Feb 23, 2017
- 2 min read
African Business: Emerging as one of the most durable automakers out of Africa is Kantanka Motors. Ghana's own carmaker is beginning to grab a sizable chunk of the country's market share with a range of electric and conventional vehicles.
Kantanka Car – a Ghanaian automobile manufacturing company with a plant in Gomoa Mpota, located in the central region of the country – launched its range of vehicles in December 2015, and is already selling them to the police and the military.
Ghana's talented yet often ignored inventors are the masterminds behind the rugged durable Kantanka vehicles. Kwadwo Safo Kantanka is a Ghanaian Christian minister, philanthropist and the owner of Kantanka Motors. He was appointed an Associate Member of the Ghana Institute of Engineers in 2004.
Kantanka's founder Kwadwo Safo Kantanka, also known as African Star, runs a network of churches around the country. A self-taught engineer, Kantanka started making musical instruments in the 1970s. He then moved to the manufacturing of electronic advertising boards, voltage stabilizers, induction motors and televisions, which featured voice control technology. Yet all his products were created in small quantities, as neither the capital for mass production nor the components were available.
In the 1990s, he set up the company's plant at Gomoa Mpota, and produced his first car in 1998. But he still lacked support for mass production. Not until 2013 did Kantanka gain that support, and was able to install a full-scale automobile assembly facility. Currently the plant has the capacity to produce eight vehicles per day, but it is expected to expand to 20 per day this year.
The Kantanka range of cars includes both electric saloon and electric four-wheel drive vehicles, along with conventional four-wheel drive vehicles. There is also an electric pickup truck. The Kantanka electric cars are powered by 12 rechargeable batteries so the car can power up by just plugging the charger into an conventional electric outlet.
Automobiles are Ghana's third-largest imported product, costing about $500 million a year, according to government statistics. All of the major global manufacturers are on the Ghana market, with 12,000 new and 100,000 used vehicles imported every year.
Kantanka will have steep competition. The sticker price of the Kantanka line starts at around $18,000, with the most expensive cars costing $35,000. A less expensive vehicle is projected to hit the market this year.
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