AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
What a difference a year makes. This time 12 months ago, we were quietly going about our daily business and then, boom, we plunged into coronavirus hard lockdown and all the paradigm-shifting socio-economic realities that came with it. In the months that followed, it became clear that not everything would go back to the way it was. Our intensely globalised world had almost instantly disbanded, shifted back to more regional, localised ways.
The widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) was one such concern, unfortunately, that COVID-19 put into sharp relief. The Jaguar I-Pace won the 2019 South African Car of the Year title and, if pundits were to be believed, this was the moment the trickle of EVs would burst into flood locally. This, despite the perennially uncertain outlook for EVs in SA; like a lack of charging infrastructure … we have just 180 public-facing charging stations in South Africa, which is quite some way behind the rest of the world. China is the global leader in charging infrastructure with over 500 000 stations at last count in 2020. Then there is the government’s taxation model which has deeply ingrained income streams related to fossil fuels. Tax on a brand-new EV is in the region of 45% when you factor in the 25% EV tax along with price-based ad valorem tax. And we won’t mention Eskom’s infamously unstable coal-fired power supply which can be flummoxed by anything as elemental as a Highveld thundershower.
To ponder all these things, we decided to take a drive through the Swartland in going to happen in South Africa?
