Electric car charging battle brewing in South Africa

South Africa’s public electric vehicle (EV) charging market will see intensified competition in the next few years after largely being dominated by an early mover.

South Africa’s largest charging network operator (CPO) is GridCars, founded by Winstone Jordaan in 2010.

GridCars initially aimed to manufacture an EV for the local market but shifted towards chargers after determining the cost to bring a car to market was astronomical.

It later moved away from charger manufacturing and instead started distributing chargers from major manufacturers.

Its early mover advantage allowed GridCars to secure the first major local deals with carmakers like BMW and Jaguar Land Rover, which were looking to expand EV charging availability to stimulate demand for their own EV models.

A big milestone for the company was rolling out strategically located fast charging stations to allow EV owners to travel on popular major long-distance routes.

These included the routes between Johannesburg and Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, and Cape Town and the Garden Route.

In more recent years, GridCars evolved into a type of charging station aggregator.

Through partnerships with various other CPOs, it started providing a single platform where drivers could find and see the status of most public charging stations.

In addition, it added cross payment support, making it possible for drivers to use a range of charging wallets to pay at its stations.

GridCars’ live map features the vast majority of public EV charging stations in South Africa.

MyBroadband analysed this map in August 2024 and determined that there are 277 distinct charging stations with a combined 555 AC and DC charging points.

That calculation counted multiple stations concentrated on the same premises and operated by the same CPO as one station.

We found that GridCars’ own stations numbered 175, making up about 64% of the total. It was followed by Rubicon with 71 stations and Chargify with 27.

The remaining four charging stations were operated by two smaller operators.

The chart below shows the proportion of charging stations run by South African CPOs.

The picture above could change drastically by 2025.

Rubicon and Chargify are adding triple-figure tallies to their current station footprints, while GridCars has only confirmed orders for an additional 35 stations.

Rubicon is best known as the official distributor of Tesla energy products in South Africa — including the Powerwall and Wall Connector.

While it only entered the EV charging business a few years ago, it has rapidly grown its footprint thanks to partnerships with major carmakers like Audi and Volvo.

Among its most noteworthy installations is the fastest EV charging station in South Africa — the 200kW DC Audi-branded station at Mall of Africa.

While the GridCars map showed that Rubicon had 71 charging stations, Rubicon itself recently told MyBroadband its tally stood at 98.

The discrepancy could be due to some of its newer stations not yet reflecting on the map or not being open to the public.

The company recently told MyBroadband it planned to expand its network with a further 191 stations by the end of February 2025.

That will take its total to between 262 and 289 charging stations, making it the country’s new biggest charging station provider.

According to the GridCars map, Chargify already had at least 27 stations, but that number is likely far higher.

Towards the end of 2023, the company announced a partnership with Mercedes-Benz South Africa to build 127 additional stations across South Africa — at a total value of R40 million.

67 of these Mercedes-Benz EQ-branded stations were completed by July 2024. The remaining 60 stations will be completed in a second phase over the next few years.

While it is unknown how many of the 27 charging stations formed part of this agreement, Chargify will have at least 127 stations, not counting those rolled out before the Mercedes-Benz partnership.

In addition to Rubicon and Chargify’s expansion, a brand new entrant to the market — Zero Carbon Charge (ZeroCC) plans to have 120 off-grid charging stations in operation by September 2025.

Unlike the other operators, most of its rollout will be long-distance routes.

However, it remains to be seen whether its goal is realistic, as it still needs to complete its first station.

Overall increased charger availability could be great news for EV drivers, as the CPOs will increasingly have to compete on price in areas where multiple options are available, to make sure drivers choose their station.

Public charging rates are currently very expensive — with slower AC charging typically costing R5.88 per kWh and fast DC charging either R7.00 or R7.35 per kWh.

The table below summarises how the make-up of CPOs in South Africa could change over the next year.

CPO	Current stations	Additions in next year	New total and target date
GridCars	175	35	210 (December 2024)
Rubicon	71	191	262 (February 2025)
Chargify	27	100	127 (2025)
ZeroCC	0	120	120
Total	273	326	599