Electric game drive vehicles charging into the South African bushveld

All of South Africa’s premier game lodges and many bush-loving self-driving tourists will be using electric vehicles within the next three to five years.

That is the bold prediction of Thula Solutions founder and CEO Gary Davies in a recent interview with MyBroadband.

Davies’s electric vehicle and energy company has seen a significant surge in interest from lodges who want to use its Thula Electric Safari Views (ESV) 4×4 game drive vehicle.

Since opening up the “Reserve Now” feature on its website, Thula has received 248 “quasi-orders” for the ESV, without marketing.

“We’ve engaged with all the top tourist groups with upmarket game lodges — including andBeyond, Singita, the  More Group — and without question, every one of them is interested,” Davies said.

“I’m absolutely convinced that there won’t be a top lodge or anybody that enjoys the bush that won’t be going on an electric vehicle in the next three to five years,” Davies said.

“Whether they are interested in our product or not, all of them say, ‘we need to go electric’.”

Davies believes there is a big market for game-driving EVs in Southern and Eastern Africa, with massive safari tourist markets.

EVs are better suited for game drives than conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles for several reasons.

The first and most obvious benefit is that their operating noise is much lower. This lets passengers take in the sounds of the bushveld around them during a drive.

Davies is a qualified guide himself and laments the impact of noisy diesel or petrol engines on the game viewer’s experience.

“The only time you truly experience the bush during a drive is when you stop at a sighting and turn off the engine,” Davies said.

“In an electric vehicle, you’re driving in that silence the minute you leave the lodge or camp.”

“You hear the insects and the birds, and you immediately feel immersed in nature. It’s almost like riding a horse.”

Davies also allayed fears about dangerous animals — like elephants or rhinos — being caught by surprise and attacking in response to a vehicle appearing without much notice.

“You will never surprise an animal in the bush while approaching in a vehicle,” Davies said.

“Animals’ survival in the bush depends on being able to hear a twig snap many metres away.”

“A 3-tonne vehicle going down a sand track on gravel is making way more noise than that anyway.”

The video below shows an elephant sighting during a game drive with one of the Thula ESV prototypes.

While the car is stationary in this instance, another benefit of EVs is that they don’t have to be switched on and off for noise reduction at a sighting.

That means the passengers can enjoy a quiet sighting even when the car is on, and the driver can make a quick getaway in case an escape is essential.

For drivers of closed-top, consumer EVs, the aircon can also run without a loud engine rumbling, which is good to have on hot days.

Because EVs use electric energy rather than fuel, they can also be topped up with solar power — something many of upmarket lodges already have.

Even when relying on grid power, the cost of recharging the EVs will be substantially cheaper per kilometre than a diesel model.

One of the top South African lodges that has already been using electric vehicles for several years is Cheetah Plains in Sabi Sand Game Reserve, which forms part of the Greater Kruger.

The lodge started using three Land Cruisers with retrofitted Tesla batteries in 2019.

As of 2022, all vehicles on its property had been converted to electric.

These are also charged using the lodge’s solar power and can provide a maximum range of 80km per charge.

Cheetah Plains’ modified electric Land Cruisers have been in regular use since 2019

The Thula ESV was built in partnership with Bloemfontein-based Brandt Radical Vehicles (BRV) and features a modified design of the latter’s Brandt BRV.

It is purpose-built from the ground up for more ride comfort than existing game drive vehicles, which are typically modified Land Cruiser or Hilux bakkies or even small trucks intended to carry goods, not people.

“We spent quite a lot of time researching the suspension, making sure this was going to be a comfortable people carrier,” Davies said.

“We wanted to outperform any ICE vehicle and made sure that we almost ‘over-engineered’ the capacity of the vehicle.

“We’ve probably got 30% more power and torque than any other current game viewer.”

To account for the impact of the heavy body weight and passenger load on the range, the Thula ESV boasts an 84kWh battery pack.

The battery was developed by Balancell, a company that primarily assembles batteries for forklifts.

The Balancell team includes engineers who worked on Optimal Energy’s Joule EV, which once looked to become South Africa’s first widely-available EV.

The Balancell battery provided the first prototype with a range of up to 220km, while the production model is capable of up to 250km.

The average game drive on a private game reserve — like Sabi Sands — is around 27km.

The additional range will ensure the Thula ESV can cover greater distances in national parks like the Kruger, where camps are often over 50km apart.

The Thula ESV can also be configured with storage to accommodate items like camping chairs, cooler boxes, and cutlery in storage compartments — including its front boot (froot).

Davies said that Thula was working with the Industrial Development Corporation to bring its EVs into production.

“They have accepted us as a project that they want to be part of and we are in the throes of industrialising the plant,” he said.

“We hope to be in a production facility by the second quarter next year to be able to produce 50 vehicles a month, although we know the demand is much greater than that.”

First Thula ESV prototype

Not for sale — for now

Initially, the Thula ESVs will not be sold to game lodges but offered on a full maintenance lease, with Thula handling all the upkeep.

“To enter the market and charge somebody R1.5 million to purchase a technology that is untried and untested in the bush is a tough marketing ask,”

“With a full maintenance lease, if it doesn’t perform according to spec, you can return it.”

However, Davies was confident EVs would get easy buy-in from the lodges.

“Once they’ve used it, once they’ve been in the bush with an electric car, I can guarantee they will not go back to driving a noisy, smelly, and vibrating diesel or petrol vehicle,” Davies said.

The table below compares the specifications of the Thula ESV with the Land Cruiser 79 single cab 4.2 litre diesel bakkie, which is a common choice for game drive vehicles in South Africa.

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