{"id":654942,"date":"2026-06-21T14:02:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T12:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=654942"},"modified":"2026-06-21T14:05:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T12:05:47","slug":"big-bank-and-large-private-power-company-begin-electric-car-charging-station-rollout-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/motoring\/654942-big-bank-and-large-private-power-company-begin-electric-car-charging-station-rollout-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Big bank and large private power company begin electric car charging station rollout in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Several South African electric vehicle (EV) drivers have recently observed car charging stations from a mysterious new brand pop up in Gauteng, the Western Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new chargers are owned and run by Black Tower Energy, a joint venture between FirstRand Bank’s RMB and Red Rocket Energy, which is among the country’s largest independent power producers (IPPs). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Companies and Intellectual Properties (CIPC) records show it was originally registered in 2023 and has Red Rocket CEO Matteo Brambilla as one of its directors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black Tower aims to roll out EV chargers at key strategic sites like office parks, gyms, and shopping centres, in line with the country’s EV sales growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It offers a comprehensive hardware and software installation and management solution for landlords at zero cost,” RMB explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red Rocket’s involvement with the company aims to make it possible for Black Tower’s chargers to get power from its renewable energy stations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Should the country’s electricity regulations be revised to allow private-sector access to Eskom and municipal networks, Black Tower intends to supply its EV chargers with renewable energy,” RMB said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This will be achieved through wheeling across the transmission and distribution grids, enabling EV charging with clean energy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company rolled out its first 16 charging stations in 2025 and anticipated rolling out to another 80 or more sites in 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five of the initial Black Tower stations are located at FNB branches in Gauteng and the Western Cape, while Red Rocket’s office in Cape Town also hosts two chargers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remaining stations are spread across three shopping centres, a vineyard, and a beachfront parking site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On its website, Black Tower describes itself as the “largest EV charging network in South Africa,” which is not accurate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That title belongs to Winstone Jordaan-founded GridCars, which operates over 400 chargers at well over 200 sites in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second-largest CPO \u2014 Rubicon \u2014 has charging stations at about 100 sites. Chargify also has stations at more than 30 locations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Black Tower currently only operates slower alternating current (AC) chargers, while the other CPOs have dozens of fast direct current (DC) chargers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black Tower replacing GridCars in some locations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
One of the Black Tower chargers at an FNB branch. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In some cases, the new Black Tower chargers have replaced charging points previously operated by GridCars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The change has irritated some people who had vouchers or credits in their GridCars’ ChargePocket wallet, which is not a supported payment method on Black Tower stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to its extensive lead in the market, several carmakers, including BMW, BYD, and Volvo, have used GridCars as their primary charge point partner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people who bought EVs from these brands were signed up for a ChargePocket account and received an RFID card linked to the platform with their vehicle purchase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cases, carmakers also included ChargePocket credit as a value add with the sale of an EV or plug-in hybrid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Volvo has also given drivers affected by its EX30 recall free charging credits on ChargePocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ChargePocket customers can also use their cards at Chargify and Rubicon chargers, due to roaming arrangements with these CPOs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the CPO industry has generally been dominated by two players \u2014 GridCars and Rubicon \u2014 several more companies have shown serious intent to compete in this industry in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among them is Zero Carbon Charge, which recently launched its first two off-grid charging stations along the N3, following the rollout of a pilot site next to the N12 between Klerksdorp and Wolmaransstad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it only has three stations, each is equipped with six DC chargers and two AC chargers, adding up to 18 DC and six AC chargers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese new energy vehicle giant BYD previously also announced a plan to roll out 200 to 300 fast charging stations across South Africa by the end of 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That rollout was slated to begin in the second quarter of 2026. To date, the only confirmed site where BYD’s chargers are available to the public is at Menlyn Shopping Centre, where it offers six AC chargers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These expansions will be essential amid a surge in EV sales in recent months, with registrations up 193%<\/a> year-on-year in the first five months of 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black Tower’s chargers have replaced GridCars chargers in some locations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":654963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29366],"tags":[106015,97851,52237,67290,88598,97824,67073,60949,40130,34639,90771],"class_list":["post-654942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-black-tower","tag-charge-point-operators-cpos","tag-electric-car-charging","tag-electric-vehicles-evs","tag-ev-charging","tag-ev-charging-stations","tag-firstrand-bank","tag-gridcars","tag-rmb-private-bank","tag-rubicon","tag-zero-carbon-charge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654942"}],"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=654942"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":655034,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654942\/revisions\/655034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}