How much it costs in rand to charge an electric car

A plethora of electric cars are on their way to South Africa and we will undoubtedly be seeing more on our roads in the coming years.

They offer certain advantages over their internal combustion counterparts, such as the ability to “refuel” while you sleep.

They are, however, more expensive to buy.

That being said, the auto industry is still moving towards electric vehicles,and certain brands have even vowed to stop producing motors that run on fossil fuels in the future.

Electric vehicles in South Africa

The BMW i3, Jaguar I-PACE, Mini Cooper SE, and Porsche Taycan are four well-known electric vehicles in South Africa.

Previously-seen models such as the Nissan Leaf are no longer available locally – and all-electric vehicles such as the Audi e-tron and BMW iX3 SUV are set to arrive later this year.

The price and battery specifications for the current models are as follows:

BMW i3

• Price – R754,200
• Capacity – 42.24 kWh
• Range – 345km
• Charge time – 42 minutes for 80%

Jaguar I-PACE

• Price – R1,942,600
• Capacity – 90kWh
• Range – 470km
• Charge time – 60 minutes for 53%

Mini Cooper SE

• Price – R642,000
• Capacity – 32.6kWh
• Range – 235km
• Charge time – 35 minutes for 80%

Porsche Taycan Turbo S

• Price – R4,077,000
• Capacity – 93.4kWh
• Range – 412km
• Charge time – 93 minutes for 75%

Charging your car

To see how much its costs to recharge an electric car from flat to full battery, we need to look at two components:

• Charging stations and the price users pay.
• The capacity of an electric car’s battery, along with its range.

GridCars is currently one of the leading car charging network providers in the country and supplies an interactive map of over 150 charging stations.

ActiveCharge is then responsible for the payment methods in order to use these charging points.

In order to charge your car, you need to sign up for a yearly membership of R325 per annum – and then pay a fee per kWh used when charging.

PlugShare is another organisation that supplies its users with access to charging spots at an annual rate, and is globally available.

GridCars remains the leading provider in South Africa, however, so they will be used as our main reference.

Every charging point on the map above has its own fee per kWh of charging, and its own availability schedule.

You would be delighted to know that most charging stations are located at existing petrol stations, and remain open for just as long.

Every charging station is also able to choose its own fee – with the average amount shared between most R5.88/kWh.

There are usually two plugs available for different charging ports, and most units provides a 50kW, direct current output.

This level of output is needed to charge the vehicles at the above mentioned rates, and is usually multiple times faster than the average home charger.

The price

Using R5.88/kWh as our average price per charge station, the cost of recharging an electric vehicle from 0% to 100% is as follows:

• BMW i3 – R248
• Jaguar I-PACE – R529
• Mini Cooper SE –  R192
• Porsche Taycan Turbo S – R549

The cost of recharging your electric vehicle on three popular routes for South African holiday-goers is then detailed below.

BMW i3 – Charging Costs

Jaguar I-PACE – Charging Costs

Mini Cooper SE – Charging Costs

Porsche Taycan Turbo S – Charging Costs