A humble 3-wheeled electric vehicle has landed Toyota in federal court
A lawsuit filed in California last month offers a modern-day David vs. Goliath story that casts the world’s largest automaker, Toyota Motor, in the role of a giant fighting a shoestring operation in Africa — but with a twist.
The legal battle is not about some top-secret new automotive technology or large sums of money. It is a humble three-wheeled electric vehicle designed to help poor African farmers transport their goods to market. The lawsuit comes after Toyota has been criticized by environmentalists for its slow adoption of electric vehicles and for lobbying US lawmakers to ease emissions regulations.
In a case filed in federal court, an organization called Mobility for Africa alleges that the Toyota Mobility Foundation, a non-profit organization created by Toyota and run by its executives, stole its technology and plans for the three-wheeler and gave it to a for-profit company operating in Kenya. The Toyota Foundation’s conduct, the lawsuit says, made it difficult for Mobility for Africa to raise money and expand its cars outside of Zimbabwe, where it operates.
Both projects in Africa are small by the standards of the global auto industry – Toyota sold more than 11 million cars last year. The Mobility for Africa project in Zimbabwe has only 322 vehicles, and the Kenyan project it claims uses its technology has only 70 vehicles, according to its website.
The fact that the dispute has reached the stage of a federal lawsuit is confusing and frustrating for the woman who founded Mobility for Africa, Shantha Bloemen, a former UNICEF official.
“There is already a huge transport deficit in rural parts of the continent,” said Ms Bloemen from Johannesburg, where she lives. “And that translates into a huge economic and social burden, especially for women.”
The Toyota Mobility Foundation said in a statement that it was “aware of this matter and is investigating it.” It declined to comment further.
Toyota Motor, the world’s largest carmaker, has popularized fuel-saving hybrid technology, but in recent years has been seen as a laggard in the adoption of electric vehicles. Environmentalists have also criticized the company for lobbying against stricter emissions regulations.
In March, a group of 36 green groups, including the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters, called on Kent Kon, Toyota’s new CEO, “to put behind Toyota’s troubling environmental record and address serious human rights and environmental issues in the company’s supply chain.”
Sales of electric vehicles in emerging markets and developing countries grew by 80 percent last year, according to the International Energy Agency, which expects sales to grow rapidly again in 2026 due to rising oil prices.
But much of the global auto industry focuses on cars or trucks that few Africans can afford, or on two-wheelers that are ill-suited to transporting agricultural products such as cans of milk or sacks of yams.
In Zimbabwe, Mobility for Africa designed a simple three-wheeled electric vehicle made from Chinese parts. Called the Hamba, it has a bed in the back that can hold 400 kilograms (about 880 pounds) of cargo and a bench designed for women in skirts.
The Hamba’s top speed is just over 15 miles per hour (24 kilometers per hour), which is plenty for rough dirt roads. The vehicle can travel 60 miles between charges, which is enough to go to local markets and back.
Ms Bloemen, who previously managed communications for UNICEF in China and Africa, said she quickly realized her group would need to train drivers and provide charging and maintenance.
Mobility for Africa has also designed and built solar charging centers where farmers can exchange batteries. And it trained locals to handle the repairs. Few rural Africans have access to bank credit, so Mobility for Africa also offered financing to allow customers to rent Hambas for $45 a week.
That’s an impressive amount for people like Nyarai Ndudzo, a 52-year-old man who lives in Wedge, Zimbabwe and bought a Hamba four years ago. But she earns enough from the vehicle to afford it. It also helps her avoid spending on car fuel, which can cost the equivalent of nearly $8 a gallon.
She uses Hamba to take the chickens she raises to market and earns extra money by carrying produce for others. The income allowed her to build a house and send her children to school. Earlier, Ms Ndudzo said: “We would work for others and not get much out of our work.”
The partnership with the Toyota Mobility Foundation began in 2019, when foundation president Shin Aoyama visited a Mobility for Africa project in Wedga, about three hours from the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, according to the lawsuit.
The Toyota Foundation has agreed to donate money in exchange for Mobility for Africa expertise. Under their contract, Mobility for Africa would retain ownership of its intellectual property. According to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles by law firms Brithem and Olson Stein, the foundation could not share Mobility for Africa know-how with third parties.
Over the next five years, the foundation gave $840,000 to the project in Zimbabwe, about 18 percent of the $4.6 million Ms. Bloemen’s organization spent during that time, according to the suit. The rest came from other grants and $300,000 from Ms. Bloemen’s personal savings.
The Toyota Mobility Foundation boasted the partnership in promotional materials in 2022 video that “TMF works closely with MFA” and provides expertise in manufacturing and fleet management.
For a while, the partnership seemed to be working as intended. In 2022, the foundation created a pilot program in Kenya that used the Mobility for Africa model and described the program as a partnership with Ms. Bloemen’s organization, according to the lawsuit.
But last year, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Bloemen discovered that the foundation secretly allowed Exa Innovation Studio, a Los Angeles consulting firm that worked for Toyota, to set up its own for-profit business in Kenya, Songa Mobility.
Songa duplicated Mobility for Africa’s technology and methods but failed to acknowledge Mobility’s contribution to Africa, the lawsuit alleges. At that time, the Toyota Foundation removed references to Mobility for Africa from its materials and website, according to the suit.
“Songa Mobility’s commercialized solution is virtually identical to the MFA program developed and shared” with Exa, the suit says. Songa Mobility’s website shows pictures of electric three-wheelers that look very similar to the Hambas, although they can carry slightly more cargo and have a longer range.
Songa “empowers rural Africa with a productive and sustainable electric mobility platform,” the company says on its website.
Exa Innovation Studio did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Toyota and Exa have not yet responded to the lawsuit, court records indicate.
A federal court should hear the case because Exa is based in California, the lawsuit said.
The Toyota Mobility Foundation cut funding to Ms. Bloemen’s organization last year, the suit says. Songa Mobility continued to compete for grants with Mobility for Africa, while the Toyota Mobility Foundation excluded it from projects elsewhere in Africa, the suit says.
“We now have 300” Hambas in operation, Ms Bloemen said. “Now I wanted to have 300,000.
Cynthia R. Matonhodze contributed reporting.