Final weekend, TechCentral participated in a four-day street journey throughout South Africa to check the feasibility of driving electrical vehicles throughout our huge nation, together with to distant villages within the Japanese Cape and Western Cape and throughout numerous mountain passes.
Beginning within the early hours of Thursday morning at The Pantry in Rosebank, Johannesburg, a group of 13 individuals set off — together with your correspondent — set off on what would grow to be an epic journey stuffed with unbelievable views, superb individuals, good meals – and greater than slightly hassle alongside the best way to maintain it fascinating and difficult.
Days 1 and a couple of of the street journey are lined in some element right here and right here. Days 3 and 4 had been simply as epic, although the charging infrastructure – which had given us grief on days 1 and a couple of – was much more dependable on the following two legs that took in Gqeberha, Jeffreys Bay, Knysna, George, Oudtshoorn, Prince Albert, Laingsburg, Barrydale and Swellendam.
The street journey concerned and was led by Naamsa – The Automotive Enterprise Council, KPMG, Accenture, Woolworths, the Industrial Improvement Company (IDC), the UK’s Overseas Commonwealth Improvement Workplace, the Electrical Mission, and Wesbank and FNB. It got here forward of Naamsa’s South African Auto Week convention in Cape City, which was underway on the time of this publication.
The journey, which was filmed for a documentary that TechCentral will republish in just a few weeks’ time, was geared toward bringing a recent focus to the challenges that might face EV house owners doing long-distance street journeys in South Africa, particularly in additional distant elements of the nation. And, sadly, we bumped into some hassle early on.
All 5 autos – a Volvo XC40 (by which TechCentral travelled), a BMW iX50, Mercedes-Benz EQE 350+, BYD Seal and Volkswagen ID.4 – made it to Cape City, regardless of just a few nerve-wracking hours in Colesberg and Jansenville (a hamlet within the Japanese Cape the place the most important drama of the street journey unfolded – extra particulars about that within the day 2 report).
The group
Other than a content material manufacturing crew (made up of Jonathan Pinkhard, Frank Meyer and Shaun Abdul), the group on the street journey consisted of:
- Greg Cress, principal director for automative and e-mobility at Accenture
- Hideki (Dex) Machida, automotive business chief at KPMG
- Feroz Koor, group sustainability officer at Woolworths Holdings
- Hiten Parmar, government director on the Electrical Mission
- Kival Singh, head of sustainability and ESG options at FNB South Africa
- Mikel Mabasa, CEO of Naamsa – The Automotive Enterprise Council
- Nathan Fredericks, senior business growth planner on the Industrial Improvement Company
- Nicholas Brooks, first secretary – senior power adviser for South Africa’s Simply Vitality Transition Challenge
- Tshetlhe Litheko, chief coverage officer at Naamsa – The Automotive Enterprise Council
- Duncan McLeod, editor of TechCentral
The photograph essay that follows gives a glimpse into the journey, among the learnings – and why there’s nonetheless loads of work to be finished behind the scenes in creating South Africa’s electrical car-charging community.
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Mission 300: the plan to deliver electrical energy to 300 million individuals throughout Africa
