EV charging infrastructure South Africa: where is it heading?
Written by Robin Hayes
The EV landscape in SA has changed dramatically in recent years, with everyone from premium OEMs to competitive Chinese and Indian brands offering tech-rich vehicles with ranges comparable to ICE vehicles thanks to advances in battery energy density. The highest-performance commercial lithium-iron batteries have nearly doubled in energy density over the past decade, rising from around 160Wh/kg to around 300Wh/kg.
And the development of significant charging networks is being driven by similar technologies without many concrete incentives from governments, even as transport works to reduce carbon emissions, to which it can make an important contribution.
Despite this, there are a number of entrants in SA’s EV charging space, with 26 companies at last count according to participant Brive, with MD Sean Maidment explaining to the CBN a somewhat complex landscape of charging station operators/owners, including AC or DC, mainline routes, dealer facilities and destination charging – in fact, Maidment says there are seven different categories, each attracting infrastructure owners, operators, or a combination of both.
individual categories
These include home charging, workplace charging AC, destination charging AC, destination charging DC, passenger travel (intercity long-haul), passenger solar hubs, and commercial (typically long-haul and intercity destinations), each with different business models, management, and profit criteria.
Those hoping to get rich quick by entering this competitive environment are likely to be disappointed, despite declining capital costs for charging hardware, and maintaining the hardware and software essential to charging performance and payment functionality requires skilled acumen, which is in short supply and therefore a major barrier to entry.
While the (hopeful) end of 14 years of Eskom load-shedding has made everyone a little more enthusiastic about the business of EV ownership and, with it, EV charging networks, it is the introduction of private and corporate solar installations that has added more than 5GW to the national grid. Maidment said having excess power generation capacity through transmission is a big advantage for the deployment of charging networks. Maidment’s vision is to have affordable charging facilities in every town in the country.
Sunlight is not necessarily a panacea
According to Breev’s business modeling, EV charging with stand-alone solar power is less economically viable for out-of-town guests, game farms and other tourist attractions, but having an EV charging facility as an added attraction to an existing or expanded solar power facility means that EV owners can confidently venture beyond their daily city commute to travel further afield.
High prices for premium products and the introduction of hybrid vehicles (which cost more but offer even greater range) have slowed the uptake of EV sales, but industry experts predict that the average EV model will cost as much as an ICE vehicle by 2030, and that’s just around the corner for those looking to buy a new car.
The reality that Chinese and Indian brands have significant market penetration is not lost on big players like BYD, which is keen to invest in charging infrastructure and praise its car products, while another as-yet-unnamed Chinese investor has secured a majority stake in Grid Cars, South Africa’s largest EV charging network company.
Watch this space.
