Day two of a 2 200km highway journey throughout South Africa in electrical vehicles, during which TechCentral is collaborating, proved much more eventful than the drama-filled first day, with bother beginning not lengthy after the conclusion of a leisurely breakfast in Graaff-Reinet.
After a later-than-scheduled arrival in Nieu-Bethesda on Thursday night – after resolving our charging authentication challenges in Colesberg – it was one other pre-dawn, coffee-fuelled begin.
We have been on the highway at daybreak, en path to the Drostdy Resort in Graaff-Reinet that has the one direct-current quick charger on the town. Our final vacation spot for the day was Gqeberha.
This text is in regards to the second leg of the four-day highway journey, which entails Naamsa – The Automotive Enterprise Council, Accenture, Woolworths, KPMG, the Industrial Improvement Company, the UK’s Overseas Commonwealth Improvement Workplace, the Electrical Mission, and Wesbank and FNB. It comes forward of Naamsa’s South African Auto Week convention in Cape City subsequent week.
The journey, which is being filmed for a documentary, is geared toward bringing a contemporary focus to the challenges that might face EV house owners doing long-distance highway journeys in South Africa, particularly in additional distant elements of the nation. And like the primary, exhausting day — which you’ll examine right here — the second day proved extremely eventful (and simply as exhausting).
The Jansenville horror
The group of 13 individuals participating within the highway journey are driving 5 fashionable electrical vehicles from Johannesburg to Cape City on a circuitous route that takes within the Backyard Route and massive chunks of the Karoo. The vehicles are the Volvo XC40; the BMW iX50; the Mercedes-Benz EQE 350; the VW ID.4 and the BYD Seal. As soon as once more, your correspondent spent a lot of the day within the XC40, which has proved to be a reliable and cozy workhorse.
We departed Nieu-Bethesda – which you actually should go to for those who haven’t already carried out so – with simply 23% left on the battery (down from 82% once we left Colesberg), and headed for Graaff-Reinet about 50km away. We arrived on the Drostdy Resort on the town with 21% of the Volvo’s battery remaining – solely a minor decline owing to regenerative braking on the steep mountain cross main out of Nieu-Bethesda, which helped high up the battery degree.
After breakfast at Maria’s, a superb restaurant close to the resort, and having topped up a number of the autos’ batteries, we hit the highway within the Volvo. Our first cease, which was meant to be only a few minutes, was at Jansenville, the positioning of a DC quick charger. Sadly, that is the place the massive drama of the day started. The GridCars-owned quick charger at that location – a dusty storage forecourt – refused to supply the BYD with energy, and, not like in Colesberg, we weren’t in a position to resolve the state of affairs with the assistance of the GridCars assist group in Johannesburg.
Ultimately, after a protracted two hours within the sizzling desert solar, a call was taken to plug the BYD into an strange electrical outlet on the service station store the place the GridCars charger was positioned to get the car as much as adequate cost to drive again to the DC quick charger in Graaff-Reinet.
However on the pace it was charging over the shop’s 220V connection – a mere 1.6kW – we realised the BYD group had a protracted wait of many, many hours forward of them.
Unable to help them any additional, we determined to push on to Gqeberha, and a Rubicon-built 150kW quick charger on the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, after which onto a racetrack within the metropolis to shoot video and put the electrical vehicles by way of their paces at pace.
On the time of writing, it was nonetheless not clear why the quick charger at Jansenville refused to cost the BYD, although we suspect the automotive – a brand new mannequin from the Chinese language auto large – needed 800V from the charger, which was solely in a position to provide 500V.
#nevroadtrip The state of affairs in Jansenville proper now whereas we await the problem with the charging station to be resolved. Removed from best… pic.twitter.com/4HaUADYJtU
— Duncan McLeod (@mcleodd) October 11, 2024
There could have been an incompatibility with the charging station, which was inbuilt 2018 – a lifetime in the past in EV expertise phrases. However that’s simply our hypothesis – we’re unsure what the foundation reason for the issue was, and as of the time of this publication at 5.45pm on Friday was that the car could be loaded onto a flatbed truck and brought to the BYD dealership in Gqeberha to have it charged and prepared for Saturday’s leg of the journey.
Greg Cress, Africa principal director of automotive and e-mobility at Accenture, who’s a key organiser of the highway journey, likened the issue at Jansenville to new expertise assembly previous and anticipating the 2 to play properly collectively.
“We’d like regulation to make sure there’s compatibility testing carried out. To scale this (electrical motoring) from a passion or mission to a nationwide proposition, it wants that kind of regulation,” he stated.
Nice to fulfill with @RubiconTech_ MD Greg Blandford in Gqeberha this afternoon and take a look at his gorgeous @Tesla Mannequin Y, which he imported into the nation. He was variety sufficient to take me by way of the software program system… pic.twitter.com/08fti3rddj
— Duncan McLeod (@mcleodd) October 11, 2024
Again on the highway, the Volvo made fast time into Gqeberha, with the autos (excluding the BYD) all making their method individually to the quick charger on the stadium, the place we have been in a position to high up the Volvo from practically empty to greater than 80% cost in about half an hour.
It was on the stadium that we have been lucky to fulfill up with Greg Blandford, MD of Rubicon, an organization constructing a community of EV charging stations throughout the Jap Cape – and the remainder of South Africa. Blandford, who imported, owns and drives a Tesla Mannequin Y, took TechCentral by way of the car and its spectacular software program system.
The assorted autos and groups (excluding your correspondent, who made a beeline to the in a single day lodging to focus and write) then headed for an area racetrack to place the vehicles by way of their paces.
The third leg of the journey on Saturday, which may have one other early begin, will take within the Backyard Route (together with Fancourt in George), the well-known Swartberg Cross and the picturesque Karoo city of Prince Albert.
TechCentral will once more present a report of the day’s actions – the highlights and the challenges – and we’ll quickly (hopefully) be reunited with the group within the BYD Seal. As of the final replace, it appeared they have been possible going to must spend the evening in Graaff-Reinet. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media
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