Electric vehicles are coming and they’re coming in fast. Quite a number of countries in Europe have introduced mandates to ban petrol and diesel cars completely by 2035. South Africa doesn’t have any official mandate to ban petrol and diesel cars. There’s currently 5 “legacy” manufactures who offer EVs in South Africa, namely: Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Mini & Porsche. A few units are sold each months, why aren’t SAns buying EVs?
Click here to view a list of all EVs currently for sale in South Africa
The cheapest electric vehicle in South Africa right now is the Mini Electric which costs R658 000, technically the CityBug is cheaper at R230 000 but the CityBug is a city runner and not a full car. R658 000 is a lot for most SAns, the average new car price is R320 000, the cheapest EV costs twice that.
Before we talk about range anxiety, here’s a map of charging stations in South Africa. The number of car chargers is rapidly increasing in South Africa but most SAns just aren’t ready to wait for 45 minutes at a charger to get a full tank (full charger? – new slang). Most parts of the country still don’t have any chargers.
There’s currently 7 EVs to choose from in South Africa, namely, Audi E-Tron, Audi E-Tron GT, BMW i3, BMW IX, Jaguar I-Pace, Mini Electric & Porsche Taycan. More EVs are coming to South Africa soon but right now the options are still limited and many buyers will buy ICE cars for a while.
EVs are cheaper to maintain than ICE vehicles, there’s less moving parts in an EV as compared to an ICE vehicle. Charging an EV is significantly cheaper than topping up petrol or diesel.
