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The BUVs Financial Sustainability

One of the interesting features the Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV) offers to owner-operators is the vehicle’s ability to pay for itself.

BUV Cleaning CityFor many owners, they are in a rent-to-own payment plan. They make a down payment and then pay for the vehicle as they earn money with it.

A couple of the sites, including the new BUV Tanzania Factory, require that the funding comes from local sources so all the funds go back to the community. They typically do not allow outside fundraising. Missionaries may receive funding from any source.

A typical down payment for a BUV is $500-1000 USD. The owner can then start generating an income, having no problem making a $200 USD/month payment. With these payments, most BUVs are paid off within two years and create a large sum for the owner with a positive ripple effect to the community.

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Update on the Tanzania BUV Micro-Factory

One of the goals of the Institute for Affordable Transportation is to produce more BUVs (basic utility vehicles) in the geographic region where they’re going to be used. It saves on shipping costs and delays.
To that end, we’ve been working with our partners in Tanzania to create a micro-factory, where they will build and ship BUVs throughout east Africa.

BUV Tanzania FactoryA micro-factory is an independently-owned business that produces and sells BUVs for profit. Local parts are used as much as possible to create the BUVs on site so the local people may purchase a vehicle for their own businesses at a lower cost than they can buy them from us.

This will enable local people to prosper with a unique business because it gives people access to jobs, education, and markets.

The factory itself plans to produce 100 BUV units per year, or two units every week. This will generate a sales revenue of almost half a million US dollars that includes component sales, service, and extensions.

The investment will create 2,000+ jobs over ten years — including drivers, assistants and mechanics. In all, 100,000 people can be helped over a lifetime with this small investment.

IAT has a specific role in helping these micro-factories start and grow. With the Technology Transfer Program (TTP), we provide a package of information that includes:

  • assembly and fabrication videos;
  • technical drawings;
  • equipment requirements;
  • quality and inspection procedures;
  • marketing materials; plus, any other necessary information.

The Tanzania factory has only just begun to produce their BUVs, all of which are already sold. This shows the need for these vehicles is great. It can only mean great things ahead in the future for these micro-factories, and we’re glad to be a part of it.

Our mission is to help provide hope to the poor and isolated in developing nations to live better and more prosperous lives by creating simple, durable transportation. This new micro-factory will go a long way in helping us realize our mission, and we are very proud of our Tanzanian partners.

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What I Saw in Belize

Imagine riding in a truck with jarring suspension over a potholed road that makes several of your fellow travelers sick just to ride on. Now imagine living on the other end of that spine jolting road, several miles away from the nearest town.

I got to visit that little area, riding in that truck on that road, during a recent research trip to Belize.

I recently returned from the University of Indianapolis-sponsored trip to the little Central American country, where we got to see different parts of it, traveling from the north to the south. The northern part of the country is flat and touristy since Belize City it the tourist capital of the country.

Most of the area is developed and the roads aren’t bad.

It wasn’t until we entered the southern Cayo District that I noticed something. We entered a small village called San Antonio, a.k.a. Little Texas, nestled away in the mountains to visit a women’s group where we learned how to make traditional Mayan food and pottery.

Most of my classmates got sick on the way over and back from the women’s group because the only way in and out of the town was a pothole-ridden dirt road.

Most of the women were at the center after leaving a domestic abuse shelter, learning to make this red clay pottery to sell at the market, as a way to create a stable lives for themselves and their children.

The only way to get the pottery to the market is to take it via the dirt road. It’s an hour to get to

San Ignacio from San Antonio and the only means of transportation is a Toyota Land Rover. The suspension on a Land Rover isn’t the best for taking pottery down to the market. It isn’t the best for people either — it’s what we rode in and why so many people got sick.

As a result, many pots and larger vases break during the trip and the group cannot make the money they need to keep the group going and support the women.

On our return trip and we all loaded up with our own pottery, I thought about the work I’ve been doing with the Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV), and what a difference it would make here. With its truck bed and good suspension, the pottery would make it down to the town more easily, and more pieces would be intact. The vehicle is relatively inexpensive and it is easy to repair and drive, which makes it ideal for the village and the women’s group.

It was interesting to see another country and actually see a place where the BUV would be helpful.

As an American, I never thought I would actually see an area where something like the BUV would be needed, and it was a humbling experience to see just how good we have it.

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IAT Student Competition Seeks to Create Perfect BUV Design

Every year the Institute for Affordable Transportation (IAT) hosts a Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV) competition amongst Midwestern colleges and universities. We started the competition back in 2000, when the IAT was founded, as a way to perfect the BUV design. We were crowdsourcing before there was even a word for “crowdsourcing.”

Student teams design and build different BUVs to compete in a series of tests and events to determine the best design for the year. Many of the student builders are engineering students completing their capstone projects at the end of their college careers.

This is a way for them to apply everything they’ve learned into improving on an already improved design. Because the BUV is used in a variety of locales without any infrastructure, the test vehicles must navigate a variety of different terrains, including an obstacle course, mud pit, mogul field, and an endurance track. (Check our video from 2008.)

The race track the competitors race on is 2.1 miles (mi) and each design has to carry three 55 gallon water jugs across the course. Every third lap the water jugs must be emptied in a nearby pond and loaded up with water again so a pumping mechanism is also involved in the competition.

Our most recent competition winner for 2014 was the University of Cincinnati Bearcats club team with Alfred State College (a.k.a. State University of New York) in second and Purdue University’s Cameroon Pup team finishing in third.

We would like to thank all of the teams who participated in the event and would like to invite all schools interested to come to the 15th Annual BUV Competition April 17-18, 2015 in Batavia, Ohio.

Click here for more information on the BUV Design and Drive competition.

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How the BUV Supports Environmental Sustainability

A major concern for many businesses and individuals today is how to be environmentally friendly, and to create sustainable products and sustainable practices. The Institute for Affordable Transportation (IAT) has found ways to be environmentally sustainable with its Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV) by reusing the back end of recovered pickup trucks, and choosing items that are easy and cheap to replace.

The BUV as a school bus.

The BUV as a school bus.

We re-use the back ends of pickups because reusing materials is more efficient than recycling as the materials don’t need to be reprocessed before it is used again.

Compared to a regular pickup, the BUV has many advantages. It gets approximately 50 miles per gallon (mpg) compared to the 25 mpg of a regular truck. It also is biodiesel-ready when most pick-up trucks are not.

Using a biodiesel engine helps the BUV create less waste. Biodiesel is made from renewable resources and has lower emissions into the atmosphere compared to a regular pickup truck. The BUV also uses 75% less fuel in off-road conditions by having a biodiesel engine which is important. Many areas where BUVs are used have no official roads, only paths.

The big question is whether biodiesel works in Africa. In the areas the BUV is located, the African countries have access to the jatropha plant. These plants have more than four times as much fuel compared to the soybean plant when turned into oil, making it a great source for biodiesel.

As a result, the IAT is able to encourage environmentally sustainable practices, by helping create a need for local biodiesel manufacturing and supply, rather than shipping in gas and oil from other parts of the world.

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