South African government should say goodbye to petrol cars

The South African government has been called on to pilot the use of electric vehicles (EVs) for their transport needs by the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Science, Technology, and Innovation, Tsakani Shiviti.

This comes after the committee held a joint meeting with the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry, and Competition to discuss a move towards manufacturing EVs and the draft White Paper on Green Hydrogen.

Shiviti said she would’ve liked to see a closing presentation detailing how government would partner with vehicle manufacturers for ministers and deputy ministers to begin adopting electric vehicles.

“This is how the real market disruption would occur. We cannot introduce all these innovations that we will not test ourselves,” said Shiviti.

“Government is big; we should start there and disrupt the market there. If we want society to trust our innovation, we should trust it ourselves.”

Shiviti said that although these market disruptions are welcomed, they would impact the average South African’s life the most.

She argued that the country should not be herded into accepting things that do not resolve its problems and empower its citizens, highlighting that Africa only accounts for 4% of the world’s carbon emissions.

Therefore, she said the urge to migrate away from coal and towards greener energy solutions should be understood against that background.

“We are as sympathetic as anyone else to the climate change-exacerbating factors, but we all should exercise lateral thinking on how to mitigate or adapt and not be dictated to by the West,” she told the joint meeting.

Shiviti said that a practical approach would be for the most significant contributors to carbon emissions to make strides to reduce their emissions and heavily subsidize new industries in developing countries.

Although Africa might account for less than 4% of global carbon emissions, Our World in Data shows that South Africa alone accounts for over 1% of CO2 emissions worldwide.

Should the country not migrate to cleaner energy sources, there are also economic ramifications, such as higher duties on goods exported to the European Union.

The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers in South Africa (Naamsa), which represents all prominent vehicle makers in the country, had also complained for years about government’s failure to embrace the transition to electric vehicles.

It warned that South Africa had not done enough to incentivize investment in electric vehicle manufacturing, which could result in job losses as global demand for fossil fuel cars declines.

As vehicle manufacturing was a significant job creator in South Africa, that would be a huge blow.

For this reason, President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced that consumer and manufacturer incentives are being considered for new energy vehicles (NEVs).

Speaking at the SA Auto Week 2024 in Cape Town in mid-October 2024, Ramaphosa said the government was considering introducing incentives to encourage local NEV manufacturing.

He also said that the government was weighing tax rebates and subsidies to promote consumer uptake of NEVs.

“This is not just about creating a greener future, but also about ensuring South Africa remains competitive in the global markets as many of our major trading partners rapidly shift toward EVs,” he said.

“It is also imperative that we remain part of this global supply chain. If we don’t, we will be left behind.”

Naamsa welcomed the announcement, saying that incentives for manufacturers and subsidies for consumers were a “crucial step towards the widespread adoption of cleaner, more sustainable vehicles.”

The organization previously published its new energy vehicle roadmap discussion document in early 2023, detailing its recommendations on consumer and manufacturer incentives to promote local NEV growth.

To advance local sales, it believes the government should provide the following subsidies for different types of NEVs:

• R20,000 for traditional hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) up to 31 December 2030
• R40,000 for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) up to 31 December 2030
• R80,000 for fully-electric vehicles (BEVs) up to 31 December 2035

One key condition for these subsidies is that they must only be available to NEVs that have been deemed road-legal in the EMA region, which encompasses Europe and the United Kingdom (UK).

Naamsa has estimated that these subsidies would cost the government about R94.5 billion by 2035.

Still, it argued that it would close the price gap between NEVs and ICE models in South Africa and significantly increase NEV sales.

With the subsidies in place, Naamsa reckons that NEVs will make up 20% of all car sales in South Africa in 2025, a drastic increase over the 1.45% recorded in 2023.

It is also estimated that the NEV share will increase to 40% by 2030 and 60% by 2035.