Nairobi, April 6 -- At one corner of a busy roadside filling station in Nairobi's Hurlingham area, a line of about 16 motorcycle taxi riders, commonly known as boda bodas, snakes towards a compact steel kiosk stacked with rectangular battery packs.

One rider rolls in, lifts out a depleted unit from beneath his bike's seat, and in three minutes slots in a fully charged replacement before speeding off to his next customer as the afternoon rush begins.

Battery-swapping stations like these are fast becoming the backbone of Kenya's transition to electric motorcycles. They anchor a new battery-rental business model known as battery-as-a-service (BaaS), which is accelerating the uptake of electric boda bodas.

Under this model, instead of owni...