Leading carmaker casts doubt over electric future in South Africa

The future of electric vehicles (EVs) in South Africa has been called into question following comments from Hyundai South Africa CEO Stanley Anderson.

Anderson noted that he didn’t see a future for EVs in South Africa since sales for such vehicles accounted for less than 1% of the total market.

“I don’t see a future for EVs in our country. Current sales of electric vehicles are less than 1% of the total market,” Anderson told SABC News.

“As a brand, we have many electric vehicle models available to us, to our market, but it’s just not viable.”

Hyundai sells several popular EV models in Europe, the United States, and South Korea, its home province, but these comments make it clear these won’t be coming to South Africa in the near future.

However, Charl Potgieter, Absa vehicle and asset finance managing executive, has indicated that he believes that EV adoption in South Africa will accelerate.

He noted that there has already been an uptick in EVs in South Africa and that this will increase as the price point of the cars comes down.

“We’re already seeing some manufacturers bringing vehicles in at very accessible price ranges … so we believe that it will accelerate,” he said.

That said, he clarified that it will take time for this increase as South African consumers are still concerned about infrastructure challenges, load-shedding, charging station availability, and the convenience of charging.

This sentiment was echoed by Asheen Dayal, DigiCars’ chief marketing officer, who added that fears over loadshedding are fading.

“Some of our energy crisis is somewhat averted right now, so we don’t have that problem anymore,” he said.

“Consumers also get the savings for not using fuel. If you work it out, rand-for-rand, in terms of the electrical cost, you’re basically saving up to 50% of your fuel cost per month.”

This can be seen in the increasingly competitive pricing among new EVs released in the country, such as the recently launched BYD Dolphin Surf, which starts at R339,900.

Lack of charging infrastructure

While more carmakers bring better-priced EVs to the country, many with greater ranges, South Africa’s charging infrastructure lags behind.

This is especially the case for South Africa’s highways.

Additionally, South Africans should not expect expansions of charging infrastructure to happen quickly, with the National Automobile Association of South Africa (Naamsa) recently telling MyBroadband that a project to roll out 120 more stations nationwide had not yet reached financial close.

This is despite the project first being announced in August 2023.

Naamsa was also, at the time, coordinating the deployment of over 100 new EV charging stations on behalf of its members, including carmakers, importers, and distributors.

However, the project has failed to deliver even a single charging station two years later, with Naamsa noting that the project is expected to take five to seven years.

By this time, thousands more EVs will likely be on South African roads.