Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai, Author at CleanTechnica

Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai

Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai has been fascinated with batteries since he was in primary school. As part of his High School Physics class he had to choose an elective course. He picked the renewable energy course and he has been hooked ever since. At university he continued to explore materials with applications in the energy space and ending up doing a PhD involving the study of radiation damage in High Temperature Gas Cooled Nuclear Reactors. He has since transitioned to work in the Solar and Storage industry and his love for batteries has driven him to obsess about electric vehicles.

Africa’s highest mileage BMW i3. Shaun Maidment’s i3 has done 252 000 km (Courtesy of evCrowdRoute)

Cars

5-Day Trips From Pretoria To Cape Town Inspire BMW i3 Owner To Start evCrowdRoute Charging Network

South Africa’s EV public charging network is growing all the time, and thanks to Shaun and his partners, evCrowdRoute is one of the firms...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiMay 5, 2020

Batteries

Jaguar I-PACE Is South Africa’s Car Of The Year

BMW South Africa has been at the forefront of promoting electric mobility in South Africa. The BMW i3 has been the only electric model...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiApril 27, 2020

Clean Transport

MellowVans’ Cool Electric Delivery Vehicles Look To Power The Global Last Mile Delivery Market

Stellenbosch-based MellowVans seeks to help firms across the globe in this space in their quest to unlock operational efficiencies and cost savings by providing...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiApril 21, 2020

: E-Bikes from E-Bikes4Africa. Images Courtesy of E-Bikes4Africa

Bicycles

London’s “Pedal Me” Starts Home Delivery Service As Stay-At-Home Orders Give E-Bike Delivery Firms A Boost

The home delivery market worldwide has been given a boost as many nations have implemented a range of movement restrictions ranging from issuing strong...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiApril 16, 2020

Cars

Electric Vehicles In South Africa: Where Are We Now?

South Africa’s uYilo Electric Mobility Program, a multi-stakeholder, collaborative program focused on enabling, facilitating, and mobilizing electric mobility in South Africa, has just released...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiApril 10, 2020

Autonomous Vehicles

Tesla’s Cybertruck Could Be The One To Finally Challenge The Toyota Hilux If It Comes To South Africa

Tesla really got us rethinking the whole idea of what a pickup truck is when the company shocked the world at the Cybertruck launch...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiApril 7, 2020

Batteries

E-Bikes4Africa’s SunCycles Ramp Up Delivery Service To Weather The Coronavirus Storm

Namibian e-bike startup ebikes4africa has been on a steady growth path over the past 5 years. The business model rightly focused on customer segments...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiApril 7, 2020

Cars

New Generation Of German Luxury Plug-in Hybrid SUVs Could Help Influence EV Adoption In Africa

Hybrid vehicles have come a long way since they went mainstream with the very successful Toyota Prius. Now in its fourth generation, featuring an...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiApril 3, 2020

Image: A Tesla Model 3 on show at a Shopping Centre in the United Kingdom. Picture by Keith Kuhudzai

Cars

Will Social Distancing Push More People To Buy Cars Online?

Elon Musk’s announcement early last year that Tesla was going to close its stores and shift to all online sales was met with mixed...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiMarch 23, 2020

Clean Transport

Will The Coronavirus-Induced Social Distancing Have A Long-Lasting Effect & Slow Down The Shared Mobility Economy?

A lot of work over the years has gone into researching, developing, trialing, promoting, and scaling efficient transit systems such as shared mobility platforms....

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiMarch 20, 2020

Are Car Dealerships Now Actively Advertising Electric Vehicles? A lot has been written about traditional automakers trying very hard to delay the mass adoption of EVs as they still have massive investments made in the ICE ecosystem to recoup. And so, it follows car dealerships then generally promote ICE vehicles over EVs and have a huge ICE vehicle inventory to push. The majority of consumers still don’t have a lot of knowledge on EVs and would depend on their local dealerships to educate them on EV’s. A 2018 paper by Gerardo Zarazua de Rubens et al, published in the Journal Nature Energy (Link), looked into how dismissive and deceptive car dealerships create barriers to electric vehicle adoption. Has anything changed since then? I visited several dealerships in South Africa to have a feel of how some dealerships are handling EVs. A lot of dealerships for BMW and Jaguar in South Africa are actively promoting their EVs. Most of the BMW and Jaguar dealerships I visited were eager to offer test drives of the i3 and the I Pace. Jaguar dealerships really go out of their way to showcase the I Pace. They regularly take the I Pace to exhibitions at malls, upmarket residential and golf estates. In most cases, they make it their star attraction. Prospective customers can also take the I Pace for a test run at the Experience Centre in Lonehill, Johannesburg. I was also pleasantly surprised when we went up north across the border to find a big banner (Image) at a Nissan dealership (Image) in downtown Harare, Zimbabwe advertising the new Nissan Leaf alongside several ICE models as “Coming Soon”. How soon is soon? Who knows? But it was refreshing to see it there. Will keep an eye open for any updates on this. I also experienced a bit of the dismissive approach at one dealership in Johannesburg. With South Africa being one of Africa’s most advanced vehicle financing markets, I had assumed getting an i3 or something on a lease or month on month rental would be a piece of cake. Wrong! The gentleman who served me was friendly and cheerful. I told him I was looking for a lease or a month on month rental on an i3 and he referred me to his manager to see if it was possible. The manager then informed me they did not have such kind of a facility (the kind of short-term/month on month lease I was looking for). They also didn’t have an i3 instore at that time, but they did not seem to go out of their way to check with any of their sister dealerships to see if they could assist even on a more long-term financing arrangement. They were quick to offer to show me the many “marvelous” ICE models in their showroom and were nudging me consider one of those instead for a longer-term lease/financing arrangement. To their credit, they later referred me to several general car leasing companies to see if they could assist but all those car leasing firms said they did not have any electric vehicles in their fleets. There are a thousand odd EVs on South Africa’s roads. Sales have been a bit slow but are promising to pick up as the selection of EV models now available in South Africa has improved. A few more models will be launched during the course of the year like the new Mini E, the Mercedes EQC and hopefully the Audi E-tron. South Africa’s busload of taxes and import duties on electric vehicles aren’t helping improve the situation though. With this tax disadvantage that impacts the sticker price negatively, one hopes car dealerships will bring out their A Game to push the EVs in their stable. It would be good hear them educate consumers on the advantages of driving an EV e.g. the benefit on one’s pocket when it comes to the total cost of ownership. It seems in this part of the World; some dealerships still don’t make the extra effort to promote EVs’, but a lot more are keen to showcase EVs. Links: paper by Gerardo Zarazua de Rubens et al, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-018-0152-x Images: A Nissan Dealership in Downtown Harare, Zimbabwe Advertising the New Nissan Leaf. Picture by Remeredzai Kuhudzai

Cars

Are Car Dealerships Now Actively Advertising Electric Vehicles? — South Africa Example

A lot has been written about traditional automakers trying very hard to delay the mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), as they still have...

Remeredzai Joseph KuhudzaiMarch 12, 2020