Vanderbijlpark-based Electronia is selling Energica electric superbikes in South Africa. The Modena- (Italy) based Energica is also the sole manufacturer in the Moto E Championship. Electronia is bringing the 21.5 kWh Energica EGO+, EVA RIBELLE, and the EVA ESSEESSE9+ models to South Africa initially, but plans to open up sales in other African countries soon.
We continue our series on the importance of accelerating EV adoption to reduce CO2 emissions. This time we take a look at the impact of motorcycles.
We recently looked at how distributed solar systems are enabling electromobility in rural Zimbabwe. Electric motorcycles and three-wheelers will transform rural communities and improve the lives of women and children in these communities.
We were excited to have an opportunity to have a discussion with BLUEPLUG Electrical, one of South Africa’s largest EV charging infrastructure installation companies. We caught up with Peter Ras, owner of BLUEPLUG, to answer some questions.
Drivelectric Kenya, a subsidiary of Knights Energy Kenya, is offering Kenyans a platform to switch to electromobility. Driveelectric Kenya’s suite of services is tailored to take away the risks (both financial and technological) for its customers, who like in most parts of the world are new to the world of electric vehicles. Driveelectric provides EV Consultancy, fleet analysis services, charging station installation services, and also offers electric vehicle leasing.
Mobility For Africa (MFA) has just completed the first of a two-part pilot phase which we covered here recently. MFA has now started the second phase of the pilot. MFA tested several models which included exploring agricultural produce transport services as well as general taxi services. It also used the pilot to measure the financial viability of the project as well as identifying solutions for different business models.
BMW South Africa has been at the forefront of promoting electric mobility in South Africa. The BMW i3 has been the only electric model that has been consistently available in South Africa since 2015, hence it is tops of the all-time sales charts with 405 units sold since 2015.
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 its State of Electric Vehicles in South Africa Report. According to the report, 1,119 plugin electric vehicles had been sold in South Africa by the end of 2019. It’s interesting to see that the sales were practically evenly split between battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plugin hybrids (PHEVs). 545 (49%) of these were BEVs and 574 (51%) were PHEVs. These numbers give an interesting look in to the state of electric vehicles in South Africa even though they are low compared to other markets with mature EV industries such as Europe, North America, and China.
On the 9th of this month, for the first time ever, Eskom, South Africa’s national power utility company, implemented Stage 6 Load shedding in which Eskom had to shed a load of 6000 MW to stabilise the grid. South Africa’s current installed capacity is 49.4 GW, according to the Draft Integrated Recourse Plan (2018) from South Africa’s Department of Energy.
Elon Musk’s home town of Pretoria recently hosted the Smarter Mobility Africa 2019 Summit, where the future of South Africa’s automotive manufacturing industry was one of the major sessions. According its website, “Smarter Mobility Africa brings together mobility thought leaders from business and government to consider, collaborate, co-create and consolidate efforts for accelerating the transition to electric and smart mobility.” Some of the discussions zoned in on how international markets are preparing for the transition to electromobility and how South Africa’s motor vehicle manufacturing industry could be impacted by this shift.
