LETTER: ICE power far from over

Landiwe Mahlangu’s excellent, informative article on electric vehicles (EVs) and the internal combustion engine (ICE) prompts some questions (“The million jobs conundrum when ICE is iced”, January 25).

How many ICE vehicles, including trucks and buses, are on SA roads? If there is full conversion to EVs, how much more electricity will the country need?

I suggest these two questions outline the local basic issues. It is all very well to write about the shift to EVs in Europe and North America, but what about the rest of the world? Has anyone attempted to do a broad analysis or at least thumb-suck on the progress of and implications of the shift in the rest of Africa, Central and South America and Asia, Japan, China, Indonesia?

I suspect ICE power will be with us for many more years than EV proponents wish to acknowledge. If the local automotive industry plays its cards well SA will be producing ICE vehicles for export for a long time yet.

Robert Stone
Via email

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