A Humble 3-Wheel Electric Vehicle Lands Toyota in Federal Court

A lawsuit filed in California last month offers a modern-day David-versus-Goliath tale that casts the world’s largest automaker, Toyota Motor, in the role of the giant battling against a shoestring operation in Africa — but with a twist.

The legal fight is not about some top-secret new automotive technology or significant sums of money. It is about a humble three-wheeled electric vehicle designed to help poor African farmers transport their wares to the market. The lawsuit comes after Toyota has been criticized by environmentalists for being slow to embrace electric vehicles and for lobbying U.S. lawmakers to ease emissions regulations.

In the case, filed in federal court, an organization called Mobility for Africa asserts that Toyota Mobility Foundation, a nonprofit created by Toyota and managed by its executives, stole its technology and plans for the three-wheeled vehicle and handed it to a for-profit company operating in Kenya. The Toyota foundation’s conduct, the lawsuit says, has made it difficult for Mobility for Africa to raise money and expand its vehicles beyond Zimbabwe where it operates.

Both projects in Africa are tiny by the standards of the global auto industry — Toyota last year sold more than 11 million vehicles. Mobility for Africa’s project in Zimbabwe has just 322 vehicles, and the Kenya project it claims is using its technology has just 70 vehicles, according to its website.

The fact that the dispute has reached the stage of a federal lawsuit is befuddling and frustrating to the woman who founded Mobility for Africa, Shantha Bloemen, a former UNICEF official.

“There is already a huge deficit of transport in the rural parts of the continent,” Ms. Bloemen said from Johannesburg, where she lives. “And it translates into a huge economic and social burden, especially for women.”

In a statement, Toyota Mobility Foundation said it was “aware of this matter and is investigating.” It declined to comment further.

Toyota Motor, the world’s largest automaker, popularized fuel-saving hybrid technology but in recent years has been considered a laggard in embracing 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 Kenta Kon, Toyota’s new chief executive, “to leave behind Toyota’s troubling environmental record and to address serious human rights and environmental issues in the company’s supply chain.”

Sales of electric vehicles rose 80 percent in emerging markets and developing countries last year, according to the International Energy Agency, which expects sales to grow rapidly again in 2026 because of rising oil prices.

But much of the global auto industry is focused on cars or trucks that few Africans can afford, or two-wheelers that are poorly suited for carrying farm produce like 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 carry 400 kilograms (about 880 pounds) of cargo and a bench seat designed for women wearing skirts.

The Hamba’s top speed is a little over 15 miles per hour (24 kilometers per hour), adequate for rough dirt roads. The vehicle can go 60 miles between charges, enough to travel to local markets and back.

Ms. Bloemen, who previously managed UNICEF communications in China and Africa, said she had quickly realized that her group would need to train drivers and provide charging and maintenance.

So Mobility for Africa also designed and built solar-powered charging hubs where farmers can swap batteries. And it trained locals to handle repairs. Few rural Africans have access to bank credit, so Mobility for Africa also offered financing, allowing customers to lease Hambas for $45 a week.

That is a formidable sum for people like Nyarai Ndudzo, a 52-year-old who lives in Wedza, Zimbabwe, and acquired a Hamba four years ago. But she earns enough from the vehicle to afford it. It also helps her avoid spending on vehicle fuel, which can cost the equivalent of almost $8 per gallon.

She uses the Hamba to take the chickens that she raises to market, and she makes extra money carrying produce for others. The income has allowed her to build a house and send her children to school. Before, Ms. Ndudzo said, “we would be working for others and not getting much out of our labor.”

The partnership with Toyota Mobility Foundation began in 2019, according to the lawsuit, when the foundation’s president, Shin Aoyama, visited Mobility for Africa’s project in Wedza, about three hours from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

The Toyota foundation agreed to donate money in return for Mobility for Africa’s expertise. Under their contract, Mobility for Africa would retain ownership of its intellectual property. The foundation could not share Mobility for Africa’s know-how with third parties, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles by the law firms Brithem and Olson Stein.

Over the next five years, the foundation provided $840,000 to the Zimbabwe project, about 18 percent of the $4.6 million that Ms. Bloemen’s organization spent during that time, according to the suit. The rest came from other grants and $300,000 of Ms. Bloemen’s personal savings.

Toyota Mobility Foundation boasted about the partnership in publicity materials, saying in a 2022 video that “T.M.F. has been working closely with M.F.A.,” providing expertise in manufacturing and managing vehicle fleets.

For a time, it seemed the partnership was working as intended. In 2022, the foundation created a pilot program in Kenya that used Mobility for Africa’s model and described the program as a partnership with Ms. Bloemen’s organization, according to the suit.

But last year, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Bloemen discovered that the foundation had secretly allowed Exa Innovation Studio, a Los Angeles consulting firm that had done work for Toyota, to establish its own profit-making business in Kenya, Songa Mobility.

Songa duplicated Mobility for Africa’s technology and methods but did not acknowledge Mobility for Africa’s contribution, the lawsuit claims. Around this time, the Toyota foundation removed references to Mobility for Africa from its materials and website, according to the lawsuit.

“The commercialized Songa Mobility solution is virtually identical to the program M.F.A. developed and shared” with Exa, the lawsuit says. Songa Mobility’s website shows images of electric three-wheeled vehicles that look very similar to Hambas, although they can carry somewhat more cargo and have greater range.

Songa is “empowering rural Africa with a productive and sustainable electric mobility platform,” the company says on its website.

Exa Innovation Studio did not respond to several requests for comment. Toyota and Exa have not yet filed a response to the lawsuit, court records indicate.

The federal court should hear the case because Exa is based in California, the lawsuit said.

Toyota Mobility Foundation cut off funding for Ms. Bloemen’s organization last year, the lawsuit says. Songa Mobility went on to compete for grants with Mobility for Africa, while Toyota Mobility Foundation excluded it from projects elsewhere in Africa, the lawsuit says.

“We now have 300” Hambas in use, Ms. Bloemen said. “I wanted to have 300,000 by now.”