Like it or not — and it’s currently a resounding "not" — SA has to change its attitude towards vehicle technology and personal mobility, or risk irrelevance in a changing transport environment.
While much of the world moves inexorably towards zero-emission electric cars, SA prefers the polluting petrol and diesel kind. And while many markets are experimenting with personalised transport technologies that allow cars to talk to each other and to surrounding traffic systems, SA appears unready to follow.
There are hints of forward thinking. A report by online marketer AutoTrader shows that 68% of survey respondents were interested in buying an electric car in the near future.
If they could get a new one for less than R500,000, they would jump at the chance. But the cheapest on the market is about R640,000, and most are much more.
Prices would fall if the government were to offer the tax breaks and cash incentives available in other countries. For all its talk of reducing automotive pollution, it has done nothing to encourage electric cars. In fact, they attract higher import duties than petrol and diesel ones.
Globally, annual electric car sales are counted in millions. In SA, barely 6,000 have been sold since their introduction in 2005. Nearly all of those are hybrids — a combination of petrol and electric motors.
Mike Mabasa, CEO of the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa), says only 585 fully electric cars have been sold in SA since they first arrived in 2013.
Besides price, car buyers don’t trust Eskom to deliver power for recharging.
They also worry about range between charges. However, AutoTrader CEO George Mienie says new-generation cars can travel more than 400km on a charge, and recharging points on major national roads are no more than 200km apart.
Whatever the objections, SA must urgently address electric power. With the exception of a few hybrids built by Mercedes-Benz SA, the entire local industry output is petrol and diesel vehicles. Of the 603,000 produced in SA in 2019, 387,125 were exported. Most went to Europe, where several governments have announced plans to ban non-electric vehicles. The UK, SA’s main export destination, says it will do so from 2030.
One forecast says 40% of new-vehicle sales in Europe will be electric by 2030, rising to 80% by 2040.
SA demand won’t keep the industry going. Mabasa says it must shift to electric manufacture or face disastrous consequences.
Without change, the annual value of SA automotive exports would collapse from last year’s R201.7bn, to just R40.3bn in 2040. Employment would fall from 110,000 to 53,802.
Allowing that is unthinkable. The government’s incoming 2021-2035 SA automotive masterplan is supposed to double employment and more than double production — with most of the extra generated by exports.
Trade, industry & competition minister Ebrahim Patel has expressed his support for the manufacture of electric vehicles. But industry officials say government commitment is needed. Multinational motor companies are more likely to invest in subsidiaries where there is domestic demand for locally built products.
Gaylor Montmasson-Clair, senior economist at Trade & Industry Policy Strategies, an independent think-tank, told a motor industry conference last week that public transport is the obvious way to introduce consumers to the technology.
To kick-start car sales, Naamsa has proposed that import duties on electric vehicles be reduced to zero for three years.
SA’s other pressing challenge is to keep up with international progress on connectivity and autonomous driving. Connected cars not only pass on information to each other about road and weather conditions, but also interact with "smart" highways and local traffic systems, including traffic lights, that relay live conditions.
Autonomous vehicles that relieve occupants of some, or all, of their driving responsibilities, rely on connectivity with their surroundings. It helps if other drivers behave predictably.
In SA, where traffic lights are routinely disabled by power cuts, and where many drivers are a law unto themselves, such conditions do not exist.
Until they do, SA’s shift towards alternative mobility will remain slow.
Globally, vehicle ownership is giving way to vehicle use. Accelerating urbanisation means many people simply want access to mobility on demand — whether by bus, car, bicycle or even flying taxi.
Montmasson-Clair says Covid-19 will assist the shift towards urban mobility. By forcing people to work from home and suspending the need for daily transport, lockdowns will show them car ownership is no longer necessary.
That is the theory. In fact, car dealers say there has been huge demand in recent months for cheap, used cars. It’s come from those who still have to travel to work but don’t want to share space with others during a pandemic.
As Mark Dommisse, head of the National Automobile Dealers’ Association, says: "A private car is their safe haven."
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