Updated August 14, 2026 12:35PM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
As dusk settled over the Mara Triangle, a section of Kenya\u2019s famed Maasai Mara National Reserve<\/a>, Oloimina, an elderly male lion with an epic mane and a limp sustained from a tussle with buffaloes, started roaring. Calling into the approaching darkness, the massive cat\u2019s calls carried for miles, his roars intended to communicate with one of the other males in his two families, the Rongai and Fig Tree prides.<\/p>\n Usually at a scene like this, you\u2019d hear the chug-chug-chug of diesel engines. But in the Toyota Land Cruiser where I sat, quietly adjusting two cameras to film and photograph\u00a0the scene, there was no engine noise interrupting Oloimina\u2019s thunderous calls. The car wasn\u2019t off. It was electric. Its motor let out a tiny whine\u2014kind of like a Power Wheels\u2014but the lion didn\u2019t seem to notice. And he felt it was quiet enough to call out to his pride-mate over and over.<\/p>\n But you already know that electric vehicles are quiet. And there have been a smattering of electric vehicles in safari destinations for almost a decade. What makes this quiet vehicle significant, and potentially revolutionary for wildlife lovers here and in the Western hemisphere, is that its batteries are charged by the sun.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got a fantastic amount of solar [power] on this continent,\u201d says Henry Fairey, chief technology officer\u00a0of Silent Savannah<\/a>, the company that built the electric vehicle I was riding in, but the solar array and battery bank that juiced it up for the game drive. And that \u201cfantastic\u201d amount of solar isn\u2019t just equatorial sunshine. It\u2019s solar panels: in just the first quarter of 2026, 15 African countries imported more than $400 million of solar panels<\/a>, just a year after the import of panels had jumped 60 percent in a single calendar year. Some of that solar bonanza has to do with energy shocks from the Iran War, but it\u2019s also just that solar\u2019s become so inexpensive: it\u2019s now the cheapest way to produce energy on the planet.<\/p>\n The \u201ccheapest\u201d marker includes making electricity in the United States and Canada, where wildlife tourism companies and regular adventurers can learn lessons from what\u2019s working, and what\u2019s challenging, when powering safari on solar.<\/p>\n Cheap or not, quiet, solar-powered EVs are still not the norm on safari in 2026. Quite the opposite: Over the past decade, the number of visitors to safari parks has skyrocketed, according to industry group Go2Africa<\/a>\u2014<\/strong>safari travel increased by 14 percent in 2023, 12 percent in 2024, and then by 7 percent in 2025. More visitors means more vehicles. And almost all of those vehicles are diesel-powered.<\/p>\n \u201cThe nature of the [savannah] is very open,\u201d says Gerard Beaton, a resident of the Mara for 50 years, and strategic director at Asilia Africa<\/a>, a tourism company that operates lodges in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Asilia Africa also operates the electric vehicle I was riding in while observing Oloimina. \u201cSo it\u2019s quite easy to see when vehicles have pulled up to look at a lion, for instance. So that tends to be a magnet for other vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n When some lion cubs (or cheetahs, or a leopard) are spotted, other guides see the first spotting vehicle\u00a0stop, and rush to join them, hoping to get their clients up close. Once they arrive, they\u2019ll move their vehicle around, starting and cutting the engine, choking the air with fumes and filling the soundscape with the noise\u00a0of the diesel firing up over and over, in an effort to get the perfect angle for Instagram.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of these vehicles, they aren\u2019t checked for emissions,\u201d says Ashley Revay<\/a>, who is studying the impact of electric vehicles on wildlife as part of her master\u2019s program at Miami University in Ohio. \u201cThey turn them on,\u00a0and there\u2019s this big puff of smoke that goes into the air, and that also affects wildlife smelling for prey, smelling for each other, and marking territory.\u201d<\/p>\n For the past decade, there has been a sprinkling of electric vehicles among that diesel horde. When Beaton was working at Ol Pejeta Conservancy<\/a>, a rhino-laden haven about three hours from Nairobi, he helped introduce the area\u2019s first battery-powered safari vehicle, built by Roam, a Kenyan company<\/a> that now specializes in electric motorcycles.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of those early adopters, I think there were eight or nine of us that bought one vehicle each, pretty much everybody gave up,\u201d Beaton says. Having just a single electric vehicle meant having a completely separate system for charging and maintenance. And because solar panels weren\u2019t as plentiful or cheap, charging the vehicles was expensive. Non-solar electricity in East Africa (and the global South in general) tends to cost more than it does in the U.S. and Europe, and the grid\u2019s not as reliable. Blackouts happen regularly.<\/p>\n A number of those factors are shifting, reducing the price and increasing the feasibility of scaling up solar-powered safari. At Asilia\u2019s Emboo Camp, Beaton says, the reduced price of panels and batteries has made it possible to add a lot more charging capability and battery capacity. The camp has amped up its power capabilities with an $85,000 investment, adding 120\u00a0kWh of battery storage capacity and a six-bay charging station. Instead of having just one electric vehicle, as he did when working at Ol Pejeta a decade ago, the camp has an all-electric fleet of ten, streamlining maintenance.<\/p>\n That\u2019s possible to do because of EV conversion companies like Silent Savannah, and because of cheaper, secondhand electric vehicle components.<\/p>\n \u201cWe take batteries out of a variety of EVs. They may come from the West, may come from China. [The vehicles] have come to the end of their life prematurely, but the batteries and the drivetrains are still in fantastic condition,\u201d Fairey says. These batteries, from MGs, Nissans, Lexuses, BMWs, and others, are installed in Toyota Land Cruisers, often with a motor from a much smaller vehicle\u2014a Nissan Leaf. This motor, Fairey says, turns the already-powerful Toyotas into \u201crocket ships.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Mopel, my guide and driver at Asilia\u2019s camp, was eager to show me the Silent Savannah vehicle\u2019s power, popping in and out of muddy ditches, and speeding towards a sighting with a grin, the engine barely emitting a whine as we whipped towards a pride of lions.<\/p>\n Other companies, like Electric Classic Cars in Wales<\/a> and Reviver in South Africa<\/a>, are doing similar conversions. And here and there, there are new vehicles\u00a0creeping in: Thula, a South African company<\/a>, is building their own custom electric safari vehicles and tourism boats. At Luca Safaris\u2019 Chyulu Lodge<\/a> in Chyulu Hills National Park in Eastern Kenya, there are a few Rivians that have been outfitted with the open sides and high roof of a safari vehicle. At Rob\u2019s Magic, a body shop outside Nairobi<\/a> that turns regular cars into safari-ready bodies, I saw another Rivian\u00a0being kitted out next to a Silent Savannah Toyota conversion.<\/p>\n The real game changer, though, is the solar charging, Fairey says. Charging infrastructure is more sparse in Africa than in the U.S.; outside the parks, most of the electric vehicles you\u2019ll see are motorcycles, which swap their batteries at small charging stations when they run dry. But for Silent Savannah, building a system that combines panels and electric-swapped EVs is their plan to increase demand.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started off concentrating just on electric vehicles \u2026 but the electricity grid is not quite up to what the camps and the vehicles need,\u201d he says. \u201cSo to facilitate that, we started developing solar containers, and they\u2019ve started to gain interest. They play a critical part in most camps\u2014they run the camps, they charge the vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n Increased attendance in safari parks isn\u2019t inherently negative. More people getting to enjoy and appreciate these animals may bolster people\u2019s appetite for conservation. And in places like the Maasai Mara, where the reserve is run by the local community, these spaces can increase economic activity and reduce human-wildlife conflict between herders and predators. But the influx of\u00a0vehicles, and drivers\u2019 pressure to get the perfect shot for Instagram, can put pressure on endangered and threatened wildlife.<\/p>\n Last year, Revay\u00a0was riding in a safari vehicle in Botswana when her group came upon a leopard cub. The six-week-old cat had been left in a tree by its mother, which had gone out in search of food.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guide continued to reposition the vehicle for photos as the sun was setting. And every time the ignition started, the cub would startle quite significantly,\u201d she says. \u201cOn the fourth ignition, the cub jumped down from the tree. Mom was nowhere to be found.\u201d<\/p>\n On the ground, the cub was now a target for predators and scavengers. Revay, who had worked in the electric vehicle industry, was inspired to study the impact these vehicles could have on animal well-being.<\/p>\n Partnering with Asilia, the Kenya Wildlife Trust<\/a>, and the Mara Predator Conservation Programme<\/a>, she spent weeks on safari in the Maasai Mara and Botswana, observing how animals interacted when approached by electric vehicles and diesel vehicles. She measured the distance at which they\u2019d react, observed the changes exhibited in their behavior, and how long after the vehicles departed that the animals resumed the behavior they\u2019d been doing before the vehicles had shown up and interrupted them.<\/p>\n For most species she studied, the animals took longer to react to electric vehicles, waiting until the cars were closer before changing their behavior. And they went back to \u201cnormal\u201d sooner after the EV left than they did with diesels.<\/p>\n This data confirms guides\u2019 experience with the EVs.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there is hunting going on, you just stop. You don\u2019t have to turn the car off, turn the engine off. You just wait for the action,\u201d says Felix Ololoso, a guide and driver at Asilia\u2019s Emboo Camp. \u201cIf you decide to leave, you leave quietly and peacefully, without turning any noise on. It\u2019s amazing. The animals will continue with their behavior that they were doing, without disturbing it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n It also agrees with a previous study conducted in India<\/a>, published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research<\/em> in 2021. Reuven Yosef, a professor at Ben Gurion University in Israel, drove electric and diesel vehicles toward leopards and other animals in Jhalana Leopard Reserve in northwest India. They approached the animals at the same speeds at similar times of day. And their observations were similar to Revay\u2019s:\u00a0the\u00a0animals reacted to the electric vehicles later and fled when the vehicles were closer than they did with the fossil fuel-powered cars.<\/p>\n When I rode in an Asilia electric vehicle in July, we silently rolled toward a group of banded mongooses in some thick grass. On hundreds of safari drives, I\u2019ve never been able to hear these animals, which have a complex series of calls and sounds that scientists liken to the syllables in human language. But in the electric vehicle, I could even hear the babies vocalizing to their parents.<\/p>\n As we watched them, I imagined being able to do the same in the U.S. Years ago, I was lucky to catch a glimpse of a lynx on a Colorado road. But as our car approached, the cat quickly ducked into high grass on the side of the road and melted into the trees. In an EV, I daydreamed, I might have caught a longer look\u2014or even a photo\u2014of the large-pawed feline.<\/p>\n In that imagined scenario, I may also have caught the creature by surprise. That was the real-life case with the mongooses:\u00a0Though we could hear them, the striped animals couldn\u2019t hear us. As the vehicle approached, the group reacted much later than they normally would, popping up on their hind legs to check out the car, and calling to each other to start a flurry of action away from the wheels.<\/p>\n This aspect worries Yosef about his study on electric vehicles\u2019 impact on animals.<\/p>\n \u201cIf that animal is startled at such a short distance, it could take evasive behavior which could be harmful to itself, or to the tourists. Because if it\u2019s a dead end, it could come back to the vehicle,\u201d he says. A small animal like a mongoose could wind up in the vehicle\u2019s tires. And a larger, more dangerous animal like a leopard could go into fight-or-flight. And if they choose flight and don\u2019t have an escape route planned, they could get injured. \u201cIf they\u2019re at a cliff face, of which we have quite a few in Jhalana, we don\u2019t know if they would go off it. We know of several leopards that have fallen off cliffs and been killed by that. But was it because of humans, because of an inappropriate approach? We don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n In Revay\u2019s study, the electric vehicles caused distress with one particularly dangerous species: elephants. The giant animals sometimes trumpeted, performed mock charges at the vehicles, or fled when electric vehicles approached. It could be, she says, that the animals are hearing something from the engine that we can\u2019t, or that they\u2019re\u00a0feeling something from the ground through their feet, which they use when communicating at low frequencies. More research is needed to understand these reactions.<\/p>\n To keep visitors safe in encounters with both elephants and rhinos, which rely on hearing more than sight to react to threats, Beaton says Asilia drivers are being trained to guide differently in EVs. When possible, they don\u2019t approach these large animals from behind, for example.<\/p>\n Yosef would like EVs in wildlife settings to be equipped with something that warns animals of their approach sooner. Similar to how EVs in cities are equipped with that angelic, sci-fi humming sound to warn pedestrians, the scientist says he\u2019d like safari electrics to have a small bell to avoid animals being trampled in high grass, and to give them more time to plan their escape as the cars approach.<\/p>\n The environmental impact of removing a few diesels from these parks may not be huge when it comes to air quality; as Yosef is quick to point out, even when a leopard is surrounded by diesels, there are fewer vehicles in the vicinity than you\u2019d find on a typical city block.<\/p>\n But these more sustainable options can be a draw for visitors. When Lindsay Hergott, a Canadian leadership coach who now lives in Costa Rica, was booking her safari trip with her four children, she chose the Asilia lodge group because of its sustainable practices, including the inclusion of solar power and electric vehicles.<\/p>\n \u201cAnytime you\u2019re witnessing nature, you\u2019re in some way impacting it,\u201d Hergott said. \u201cBut we specifically asked to have a regenerative experience with the safaris \u2026 I wanted minimal exploitation.\u201d<\/p>\n The guides at the camps, who are Maasai, the tribe the reserve is named for, embrace the solar and electric solution as protecting their home country.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m born and raised here. And so it\u2019s sad to see it going in a wrong way, with lots of fumes, all the smoke,\u201d Ololoso says. \u201cNow that I have a chance [to drive them] and see that the electric cars work, it\u2019s really important for me and the entire Maasai Mara, and the people who are in this ecosystem, that the electric cars are the best to protect the nature.\u201d<\/p>\n Mopel agrees: \u201cIn the future, this is what we need to have in the Mara.\u201d<\/p>\n When one of Asilia\u2019s electric vehicles goes out for a drive, it\u2019s\u00a0been charged overnight, Beaton says.<\/p>\n \u201cThey set off in the morning, and then come back in from the game drive around 11 a.m. They\u2019ll be down to around 65 percent,\u201d he says. While guests eat a late breakfast or lunch, the vehicles are hooked up to the solar charging station. There, they can wind up back around 100 percent (or near it) before the evening game drive, which kicks off around 4 p.m. Afterward, \u201cthey may be back down to 70 percent, and then we top them up overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n To provide enough power for this cycle, Silent Savannah budgets for about 12 panels per vehicle, each providing 600 watts of charging.<\/p>\n For operators in the U.S. who might take tourists out to see buffaloes, bears, or bison, this model of morning and evening drives with a charging session in between can be tough to replicate. But most EVs have enough range for day trips in places like Yellowstone, Zion, and Yosemite, says Court Whelan, PhD, chief sustainability officer with Natural Habitat Adventures<\/a> (NatHab). The wildlife tour company has electric vehicle projects at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, but also in Botswana, Tanzania, Nepal, Borneo, at Machu\u00a0Picchu in Peru, and in the Galapagos Islands. In U.S. National Parks, the company has Rivians that act as support vehicles, transporting guests\u2019 luggage and supplies, but not guests themselves on tours.<\/p>\n Natural Habitat\u2019s Botswana vehicle is charged by a solar array\u2014one of the first vehicle-solar hookups of its kind in Africa\u2014but in the U.S., these systems haven\u2019t been set up yet. For most trips, Whelan says, range shouldn\u2019t be an issue. But for truly wild, remote, multi-day adventures, having enough power in a vehicle could pose a problem.<\/p>\nSolar Makes Electric Safaris More Viable<\/h2>\n
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Solar Sustainability Draws Tourists, and Is a Point of Pride for Locals<\/h2>\n
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Can It Work in the U.S.?<\/h2>\n