13 exciting electric cars coming to SA next year — and what they will cost

The Voice

The Voice

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mypetcow said:
Where's the issue exactly? It's not like your current car(s) don't need to refuel on your 400-800km trip. On a standard household plug your electric car charges about 40km of range for each hour it's plugged in. If you go to a normal campsite with power and you car is plugged in there for 10 hours...you've got 400km of range again. But obviously if you're thy type to take jerry cans with you into the middle of nowhere for days on end...then maybe these specific electric cars with their current range aren't the best for you.
It will take time until electric cars are made for most use cases such as yours.
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It doesn’t take 30mins+ to put petrol in your tank, though, every time you do it.
 
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mypetcow

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The Voice said:
It doesn’t take 30mins+ to put petrol in your tank, though, every time you do it.
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Very true but can you refill your petrol car while you’re sleeping? You plug in an electric when it’s convenient and you have a plug nearby. It’s not so much of a fill up the tank, run it until it’s almost empty and only then go to the Engen to fill it up.
You top it up as opportunity presents itself.
 
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itareanlnotani

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ubercal said:
lol , its one of the ugliest mercs ive seen in a long long time/
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Also hideously inefficient for an EV.

27kW.h/ 100km???

Are they kidding. Should be closer to 15kW.h i.e. almost half what it is.
I thought the Jaguar Pace was bad - but the Merc, sheesh.
 
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mypetcow

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itareanlnotani said:
Also hideously inefficient for an EV.

27kW.h/ 100km???

Are they kidding. Should be closer to 15kW.h i.e. almost half what it is.
I thought the Jaguar Pace was bad - but the Merc, sheesh.
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The design may appeal to some people but the efficiency is terrible. An equivalent Tesla Model S is sitting at 18.9kWh/100km. That’s 30% more efficient than the Merc.
That means that for a 100kWh battery pack the Tesla Model S would go 530km while the Merc would only travel 370km. That’s 160km of difference wasted as heat or friction in the Merc. Are you kidding me?! German engineering lol. They’re still trying to catch up to Tesla.
 
rvZA

rvZA

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Lol. EVs are overrated. The world are not ready for them as yet. In a p!ss poor country like SA, these cars are merely signs of what could have been.
 
backstreetboy

backstreetboy

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rvZA said:
Lol. EVs are overrated. The world are not ready for them as yet. In a p!ss poor country like SA, these cars are merely signs of what could have been.
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Speaking nonsense as usual. Cheap chinese electric cars are coming like a tsunami.
 
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Paul_S

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backstreetboy said:
Speaking nonsense as usual. Cheap chinese electric cars are coming like a tsunami.
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Only if the ANC gets out of the way else we can expect expensive EVs in South Africa loaded with taxes and import duties in order to protect the local, unionised vehicle manufacturing industry.

Case in point: Cheap Japanese imports not being allowed into South Africa.
 
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itareanlnotani

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FiestaST said:
Paper vs reality. I am not seeing any. There is a market but nothing is actually arriving as yet.

"Planned" doesn't count.
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China is LHD, SA is RHD.

China has a huge internal market they serve - after that, most exports will initially concentrate on LHD, then to RHD eventually.

So yes, I agree, there is a market, but its not headed our way for a while still. I give it around 5 years.
 
FiestaST

FiestaST

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itareanlnotani said:
China is LHD, SA is RHD.

China has a huge internal market they serve - after that, most exports will initially concentrate on LHD, then to RHD eventually.

So yes, I agree, there is a market, but its not headed our way for a while still. I give it around 5 years.
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Thanks. I'm well aware of both points.

My concern was about BSB's post about said cheap Chinese EV's are supposedly "coming".

"Coming" of course being very relative ie. 5 years (arguably).
 
Archer

Archer

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Shew, many posters are jumping to wild conclusions while clearly not knowing much

I'll respond to one item: the cost. Once you can make something in volume prices do silly things. These cars are the first, are being made on new tooling in relatively small volume. This drives high prices. Crank the volumes to 100k+ per annum, share the tooling across multiple product lines and prices can drop 50-75%.

I've seen first hand the prices for a steering wheel for example, on old tooling it's about $75 per vehicle. A brand new design for that same vehicle was effectively $3000 per vehicle due to the low volumes and the associated initial setup/tooling/validation costs

Heck I also recall the setup costs for a start/stop button. All we did was resize the face, add our logo and change the LED and got charged $120k (even from a China supplier). Shows again how important volume is for driving down prices
 
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itareanlnotani

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Archer said:
Shew, many posters are jumping to wild conclusions while clearly not knowing much

I'll respond to one item: the cost. Once you can make something in volume prices do silly things. These cars are the first, are being made on new tooling in relatively small volume. This drives high prices. Crank the volumes to 100k+ per annum, share the tooling across multiple product lines and prices can drop 50-75%.

I've seen first hand the prices for a steering wheel for example, on old tooling it's about $75 per vehicle. A brand new design for that same vehicle was effectively $3000 per vehicle due to the low volumes and the associated initial setup/tooling/validation costs

Heck I also recall the setup costs for a start/stop button. All we did was resize the face, add our logo and change the LED and got charged $120k (even from a China supplier). Shows again how important volume is for driving down prices
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Actually it shows what not to do.

Changing the sizing of a component means retooling. New injection mould, new samples, qc, etc etc.
"all we did...". Was is necessary? Could you have used an off the shelf part?

Adding your logo to the existing size would cost almost nothing. Changing the led could cost almost nothing - eg for a different colour led (although this could definitely cost more as you may need different driver/software if you want it to do more functionality - i.e. pulse). Even changing the color of the part wouldn't cost that much.

If you kept to a standard design size (and there are plenty of options in the box of lego that is oem supplier parts), and added your logo, the incremental cost is relatively minor, even in low qty.

Cars, and even EV's have been manufactured for hundreds of years now. (late 1800's onward).
There is standardization. Most of an EV is not completely new.

The interior is standard (unless you make design changes for no valid reason other than aesthetics).

The main differences in an EV will be chassis - as you'll need to design for battery placement and powertrain, vs engine, transmission and exhaust system. That's even if they bother to redesign, so far most manufacturers have been content to stuff things inside existing mounting, vs design from scratch.

They've had a few decades to play about with this. We've known mass markets EV's were coming since the 90's. I have less sympathy than you'd expect here.
 
Archer

Archer

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itareanlnotani said:
Actually it shows what not to do.

Changing the sizing of a component means retooling. New injection mould, new samples, qc, etc etc.
"all we did...". Was is necessary? Could you have used an off the shelf part?

Adding your logo to the existing size would cost almost nothing. Changing the led could cost almost nothing - eg for a different colour led (although this could definitely cost more as you may need different driver/software if you want it to do more functionality - i.e. pulse). Even changing the color of the part wouldn't cost that much.

If you kept to a standard design size (and there are plenty of options in the box of lego that is oem supplier parts), and added your logo, the incremental cost is relatively minor, even in low qty.

Cars, and even EV's have been manufactured for hundreds of years now. (late 1800's onward).
There is standardization. Most of an EV is not completely new.

The interior is standard (unless you make design changes for no valid reason other than aesthetics).

The main differences in an EV will be chassis - as you'll need to design for battery placement and powertrain, vs engine, transmission and exhaust system. That's even if they bother to redesign, so far most manufacturers have been content to stuff things inside existing mounting, vs design from scratch.

They've had a few decades to play about with this. We've known mass markets EV's were coming since the 90's. I have less sympathy than you'd expect here.
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Cabin (the interior) stays the same? So you're happy raising the whole cabin making the vehicle taller, or using a smaller battery to keep the height the same? Likely you'll make more compromises on the battery trying to support the cabin hard points needed as well. Would also mean the HVAC is the same even though it depends on ±90°C water from an ICE. So ya, cabin could be the same if you're willing to have a bad car.

Everything is a compromise and nothing is simple. Again it seems like you're using small scraps of what seems logical to form opinions while the reality is vastly different.
 
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BuckRogers

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It's interesting to debate the finer details of these individual vehicles, but we are living in a country where Gwede believes the future is coal en Patel thinks we should ban flipflops and heavily tax ev's.
 
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