South Africa must adapt and build electric vehicles

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Jamie McKane

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South Africa must adapt and build electric vehicles

The South African automobile manufacturing industry will plummet into a massive decline if it does not adapt and start making electric vehicles (EVs) in the next few years.

This is according to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA) CEO Mike Mabasa.
 
MavChat said:
If there is no electricity, how will you charge it? Driving around with a petrol generator kind of defies the object of having an electric car...
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Volkswagen SA build more vehicles for export than the local market. ;)
 
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He is 100% right, but at the same time it is entirely up to the international manufacturers as to whether they want to invest the billions on the required upgrades to the plants and retraining the staff...

Our local market is almost irrelevant to the investment that the international manufacturers pump into this country from a manufacturing perspective really, we are an export manufacturing entity for them.
 
MavChat said:
If there is no electricity, how will you charge it? Driving around with a petrol generator kind of defies the object of having an electric car...
Click to expand...
This. Gonna suck to drive in SA when Eskom starts implementing stage 23 from 18:00 to 06:00 around the end of 2021..
 
MavChat said:
If there is no electricity, how will you charge it? Driving around with a petrol generator kind of defies the object of having an electric car...
Click to expand...
Same as you do with your cell phone, charge it before power goes off and when power goes off you have enough juice to keep going, it's not hard people.
 
Seeing that we have all that electricity lying around and that cheap as well.... Ah well, let's release a statement saying we will soon have pulution free cars as everybody will drive ekectric cars. That should solve everything. This govt is by now fully convinced that a PowerPoint presentation is how one changes things.
P.S. Also declare ReaVaya a massive success in that statement. That should solve that one as well.
 
TheChamp said:
Zero support from government.
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Que? https://web.archive.org/web/2010042...ag.co.za/article/a-joule-of-a-plan-2010-04-06

HO: Starting a new OEM from scratch requires loads of money. How is Optimal Energy funded? Who are the backers, and how committed are they? Is the taxpayer paying for this?
KM: Optimal Energy belongs to the four founders, the Innovation Fund (part of the Department of Science & Technology, i.e. government) and the IDC. We have received no grants or loans. Government and the IDC are fully committed, as proven by the new Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP), which specifically addresses the commercialisation of South Africa's electric vehicle as this will trigger the start of a whole industry, with job creation, skills development, export revenue, and so forth.
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ja ja, while the fat cadres fight colonialism to build houses out of cow kak again while they themselves drive the latest BMWs.
 
LaraC said:
Volkswagen SA build more vehicles for export than the local market. ;)
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Well, then it's not got much to do with this article? Surely any decision on what cars they build here for export is dictated by VAG's global requirements, not the local puny souf effrican ones?
 
Strange that the head of NAAMSA, who's members are the OEMs, would say the factories need to be changed. Factories that are run by the OEMs. But then the OEMs say there aren't any plans for electric...

So, are SA factories just going to be for ICE, ie. a slow-growing market? Do high-growth electric manufacturing elsewhere? Then if EV is the majority of vehicles we just close the local markets/re-invest then?

I'm confused who NAAMSA represents then, if not the OEMs?
 
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