Audi Centurion launches solar home-charging for E-trons

In recent times the number of brands offering electric vehicles (EVs) locally has grown to include Audi, BMW, Mini, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Porsche and Volvo, but sales of these emission-free cars remain modest due to their relatively high prices and consumer fears about range and charging times.

Eskom’s unstable electricity supply is another contributing factor to the slow consumer uptake, but a new solar solution could take some of the anxiety out of the purchase.  

Audi Centre Centurion, part of the Autohaus Group, has introduced a  home-based solar charging solution for buyers of the electric Audi E-tron. It uses smart charging solar technologies from Germany’s SMA Solar Technology with local installation support by their SA partners ANH Technologies.

“Customers could easily charge their E-tron on solar power alone, by supplementing their at-home charging with charging at our dealership when required,” says Peter Preusse, MD of Audi Centre Centurion.

The at-home solution offers a peak power delivery of up to 7.4kW, which is close to twice the peak power output of conventional wall charging boxes. The system is linked to a phone-based app that offers real-time charging reports and different charging modes.

These modes allow E-tron owners to select solar-optimised charging, forecast-based charging (based on the driver’s schedule and time of day) and fast-charging, which allows for additional power supplementation through the standard electric grid.

The dealership has also transformed to solar charging for its own E-tron fleet. The dealership’s solar charging system has a 50kW peak load, an intelligent energy management system that caps peak load usage and limits the power drawn from the municipal grid and a smart E-tron charging station that can charge two vehicles simultaneously with solar power alone.

Jeurgen Reinert, SMA Technologies CEO, says that in Europe, owning an electric car is not novel any more and many people are switching to all-electric motoring.

“With our range of smart charging technologies and with forward-thinking partners such as Audi Centre Centurion, it is only a matter of time before it becomes more commonplace in SA as well.”

Says Andreas Wagner, CEO of ANH Technologies: “The home-charging system has been designed to offer the most efficient and fuss-free charging environment. We have also designed it to be completely future proof, which means that you can easily upgrade the system to add more electric vehicles or even your entire home to the solar charging solution.”

The cost of the solar home charger is about R200,000.

Audi bundles a free home charger with an industrial plug (CEE) to all E-Tron owners, covering the installation cost of up to R5,000. This charges the car in about 13 hours.

There are 10 E-tron dealerships comprising three outlets in Johannesburg, three in Pretoria and two in both Cape Town and Durban, with some dealers offering free charging.

Audi’s charging network of up to 70 stations across the country includes 150kW ultra-fast DC chargers, 80kW fast DC chargers and 22kW AC chargers. Audi SA has partnered with Gridcars to allow E-tron customers access to the public charging network of more than 280 universal charge-point connectors.