{"id":649069,"date":"2026-06-01T16:02:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T14:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=649069"},"modified":"2026-06-01T19:23:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T17:23:39","slug":"south-africas-biggest-electric-car-charging-station-company-under-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/motoring\/649069-south-africas-biggest-electric-car-charging-station-company-under-fire.html","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s biggest electric car charging station company under fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Numerous South African electric vehicle (EV) drivers have reported issues with charging their cars on the GridCars network in the past few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GridCars is South Africa’s largest public EV charge point operator (CPO), with more than 250 of its own direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) points in operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband recently ran a poll on a Facebook group with a few hundred EV owners in South Africa, asking whether they had experienced an issue with a GridCars charger in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

46% said they experienced an issue that could not be resolved, while a further 31% said they experienced an issue that GridCars could fix. Only 23% had no issues using the network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These issues were often due to a fault or problem at a specific charging point, rather than the network as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two popular DC charging stations \u2014 one at the Alzu service station next to the N4 near Emalahleni and the other at Mooirivier Mall in Potchefstroom \u2014 seemed to have been offline for long periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, on 3 May 2026, several users in another large Facebook group for South African EV owners reported more widespread network issues at around the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One user shared an image showing an issue with server communications. Others succeeded in starting a charge using the QR code on the charger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a few days later, a user complained that the status of chargers on GridCars’ live map was not reflecting the actual on-the-ground status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They arrived at a charger that showed as available in the app, but found another EV was already charging there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last year, MyBroadband has frequently monitored the GridCars live map on the web and found that, more often than not, over a dozen chargers were shown as offline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some GridCars chargers a bit long in the tooth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
GridCars map as of 17:00 on 21 May 2026, showing at least 10 chargers offline in the southern part of South Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband asked GridCars about the recent issues with its network, highlighting the poll and the website issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company said its team would consider the information provided as part of its ongoing assessment of network performance and customer experience, and thanked MyBroadband for the observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should there be any information that we believe would be helpful to share following our review, we will be in touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to being the largest CPO in South Africa, GridCars was among the first, beginning with a rollout at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in 2009. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, the company told MyBroadband that one particular generation of charger had reached a threshold in its maintenance cycle, resulting in unforeseen downtime on its AC charging point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are actively monitoring the network to ensure proactive measures are taken to minimise any unexpected downtime,” GridCars said at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founder Winstone Jordaan took a big leap by being the first mover in public EV charging in South Africa, establishing a network that made it possible for early adopters to take on longer-distance routes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GridCars recently changed ownership, with Solareff selling its 75% stake in the company to young and mysterious South African\u2013Taiwanese Tzung En Liao, who has maintained a low public profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among GridCars’ more recent projects is the rollout of public EV chargers on behalf of Eskom, whose participation in the sector has drawn criticism from the broader e-mobility sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some industry participants are concerned<\/a> that Eskom could exploit its position as South Africa’s largest energy distributor to undermine private CPOs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom could offer certain properties reduced tariffs or other special concessions as part of a negotiated pricing agreement (NPA), as it does with certain heavy power users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One source told MyBroadband that a CPO’s proposal at a Cape Town mall had already been delayed after Eskom tried to pitch a similar deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several South African EV drivers have reported issues with GridCars chargers in 2026, some of which could not be fixed and forced them to find another station.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":650569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29366],"tags":[52237,31960,67290,60949,105110],"class_list":["post-649069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-electric-car-charging","tag-electric-cars","tag-electric-vehicles-evs","tag-gridcars","tag-public-ev-chargers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649069"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649069"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651275,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649069\/revisions\/651275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}