South Africa’s electric car charging problem

Public electric vehicle (EV) charging station rollouts have slowed down in the year to date as charge point operators (CPO) wait for more EV adoption and face prohibitive infrastructure costs.

That is according to feedback from Hilton Musk, the head of e-mobility at Rubicon, South Africa’s second-largest CPO.

Musk told MyBroadband that network expansion had generally slowed due to CPOs wanting to let the current network utilisation increase before expanding further.

In addition, investments from vehicle manufacturers and the private sector have cooled. “Expansion is important, but it comes at a cost and requires support from various stakeholders,” Musk said.

Musk believes slower AC charging stations will increase the most in 2025, while faster DC chargers will lag.

“DC expansion will likely pick up pace again next year as we start to see increased EV sales and utilisation,” Musk said.

Musk believes that the country was “on the precipice” of an EV infrastructure boom, with several new EV makers entering the market with more affordable fully-electric and plug-in options.

Musk said the biggest challenges for charging expansion are getting buy-in from hosts and property owners, and the availability and cost of electricity at these key sites.

“Tshwane’s Basic Charge is a good example of a hindrance to expansion in Pretoria,” Musk said. “We actively avoid Pretoria as a result, as it makes installing chargers financially unfeasible from the onset.”

Rubicon is currently rolling out stations at the fastest pace of any CPO. It has added 11 new stations since the start of 2025.

Nine of these stations offer DC fast charging while two are AC-only. Most of the stations are located in the Eastern Cape, a strategically important province for the automotive industry.

These were rolled out in partnership with the Automotive Industry Development Centre (AIDC) Eastern Cape, the first South African government entity to back and invest in EV charging infrastructure.

Little sign of life on other networks

Considering the financial and operational challenges with EV rollouts, Rubicon’s expansion is not slow by any means.

However, it had originally planned to reach an ambitious 289 stations by the end of February 2025.

It is now aiming to reach 200 stations by the end of February 2026, with the addition of 81 new locations over the next nine months.

While there are close to 400 public EV charging stations in the country, the numbers continue to remain fairly limited outside of the four most populous provinces and away from large highways.

While places like the Northern Cape, North West, and Limpopo may be less populated, they are popular destinations for holiday travellers. EV owners going on road trips rely heavily on public chargers.

The vast majority of stations remain concentrated in large cities and towns, where many EV users would be able to charge at home at a much lower cost.

The country’s biggest CPO — GridCars — could not provide feedback to two separate queries in the past six months asking about its rollout progress and plans.

The only major expansion GridCars has announced in recent years is a partnership with Eskom, which will see it build 10 stations at at five Eskom sites across the country.

In addition, the company’s ballpark figure of “350+ stations” on its network has remained the same for many years.

It is also important to note that its figures include Rubicon’s stations and a handful of other CPOs — including the third biggest player Chargify.

Chargify seems to be the only company aside from Rubicon that has added new stations, with at least three rolled out in 2025.

Rubicon public charging innovations

Rubicon is also working on other innovations in the EV charging field. In partnership with Verifone, it has rolled out tap-to-pay for regular bank cards at 24 DC stations.

It aims to add tap-to-pay to all its stations by the end of 2025. The capability will eliminate the need to load a dedicated wallet with charging credits and having to pay with an RFID card or mobile app.

Another one of Rubicon’s immediate objectives is to launch Fleet Charge Cards for fleet operators and owners.

While these cards will still be RFID-based, they will run on a postpaid system and require no digital wallet top-ups.

“We already have a couple testing this system with Zimi Charge and Everlectric, with talks with Aeversa also underway,” Musk said. “I think fleet adoption is going to see the greatest growth of all sectors.”