FREE TO READ | Energy magazine zeros in on electric vehicles

Whatever their perspective on climate change and its host of impending, appalling knock-on effects, the average South African might see electric cars as a little ... out of reach, for now. They’re quite expensive. With fewer than 500 charging stations across the country (one for every 2 442km²) the necessary infrastructure is pretty thin on the ground. Then there’s the question of our electricity supply ...

It’s thus understandable why the average South African might think electric vehicles (EVs) aren’t all that relevant to their lives right now. However, they’d be wrong. Automotive production is our largest manufacturing sector, contributing nearly 5% of GDP, with vehicles and automotive components comprising 12.4% of all exports. Our largest export market is the EU, which ostensibly plans to halt the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles there by 2035. If we don’t transition to manufacturing EVs and their necessary components — and soon — we stand to lose a lot of business, not to mention tens of thousands of jobs.

It’s a complicated issue that we explore in this edition of Energy, which is dedicated largely to the future of mobility and its implications for our country. That means we also look at some exciting new EVs dropping locally this year, along with what the booming lithium-ion battery market means for SA and its vast manganese reserves.

Of course, fossil fuels will be around for a long time yet, so we close with an examination of the role of logistics in exploiting these resources with the most efficiency.

Anthony Sharpe, Editor

Browse through the full magazine below (zoom in or go full screen for ease of reading):