BP quietly kills EV charger project in South Africa

wingnut771 said:
Those people can charge at home.
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Exactly. 90% of them charge at home. 10% might use it for work. Unfortunately that 10% won't cover costs and maintenance and space it takes at garages. And won't surprise me if most of the charging stations we currently have are making a loss or marginal proffit. The only place it makes sense if for these charging companies to keep expanding and leave traditional garages to do what suits Africa. BYD will probably eventually take the lead in charging facilities, Grid and Rubi will become small players.
 
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Maximum charge rate at home on single phase is only 7kWh. Damn slow and if relying on solar during winter you have to wait for your batteries to charge up which takes longer as the sun is at its weakest.
 
RedViking said:
Exactly. 90% of them charge at home. 10% might use it for work. Unfortunately that 10% won't cover costs and maintenance and space it takes at garages. And won't surprise me if most of the charging stations we currently have are making a loss or marginal proffit. The only place it makes sense if for these charging companies to keep expanding and leave traditional garages to do what suits Africa. BYD will probably eventually take the lead in charging facilities, Grid and Rubi will become small players.
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Waiting for a grid connection and then paying Eskom's R500/kW demand charges are the killer.
 
rph72 said:
Maximum charge rate at home on single phase is only 7kWh. Damn slow and if relying on solar during winter you have to wait for your batteries to charge up which takes longer as the sun is at its weakest.
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First world problems. This is why everyone is very cautious. Although don't hear many complaints.
 
RedViking said:
First world problems. This is why everyone is very cautious. Although don't hear many complaints.
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Well, I don't see a problem seeing the average user only uses 8kWh in their daily commute, but can charge 35kWh overnight with their 7kW charger, therefore, only needs to charge every 4.3 days at home.
 
wingnut771 said:
Well, I don't see a problem seeing the average user only uses 8kWh in their daily commute, but can charge 35kWh overnight with their 7kW charger, therefore, only needs to charge every 4.3 days at home.
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Exactly...I'm not understanding the complaint about 7kw home charging after over 2 years of EV ownership.

I even limit mine to 4kw since we have some big energy pullers like large aircons/pool pumps/irrigation pumps and fish tank heaters etc etc that we run simultaneously on a single phase grid connection together with the charger at nights. We usually charge overnight on a Sunday night and Friday night...like how you put your phone on charge and go to bed without worrying about it or watching it, except I need to charge my phone overnight every night!
 
July 2026: highest monthly new car sales since 2014 at 40912

only 419 of those were pure EVs that must always charge in order to drive somewhere
a further 990 were plug-in hybrids that don't need to charge unless they want to

i.e. only 1% of new cars sold need a charging station at all, simple case of supply and demand

with such low numbers it would be silly to install charging stations everywhere, the automotive equivalent of installing unisex bathrooms in schools to placate the gender-confuseds
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
July 2026: highest monthly new car sales since 2014 at 40912

only 419 of those were pure EVs that must always charge in order to drive somewhere
a further 990 were plug-in hybrids that don't need to charge unless they want to

i.e. only 1% of new cars sold need a charging station at all, simple case of supply and demand

with such low numbers it would be silly to install charging stations everywhere, the automotive equivalent of installing unisex bathrooms in schools to placate the gender-confuseds
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It's a chicken and egg situation...one affects the other,with not enough chargers people will have range axiety and not buy EV's.

Thankfully SA is peppered with EV charging stations in the main cities and main routes...the smaller cities and outlying routes are quickly getting new chargers monthly.
 
falcon786 said:
It's a chicken and egg situation...
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mostly not, that's not how supply and demand dynamics work
if enough people wanted EVs, there would be chargers everywhere by now

we have plenty of highly populated urban areas where the average day of driving easily falls within range of an EV with a full battery, and STILL it represents only 1% of new car sales

rationally that means having a full fledged charger network country wide is not going to bump the number far above that 1% by itself, they come with a price premium and longevity concerns around very expensive batteries which are likely far more of a concern to an owner
 
Wait until the criminals wake up to the fact that there are metals to be had in the charging station cables that attaches to the car.
All cables will be cut, removed and sold for scrap and EV cars won't have anywhere to charge. It is inevitable.

It has happened overseas.
 
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