EVs are great and let’s wish the technology all the best but these are not suitable for every environment. If you are driving to Europe overland from SA you wouldn’t choose an EV…
I think the operative word there is “yet”. Some things are a long long way off. I don’t see battery powered planes on the horizon at all. Cargo ships, also unlikely any time soon. Big Diesel lorries as well. People who have to drive really long distances on a regular basis, absolutely the same thing.
But this is precisely the “equal and opposite error” thing I am talking about. One side says “oh, you cannot drive across Africa with an EV, therefore it won’t work at all”, while the other side says “soon this will go everywhere, so BAN everything else”. Both extremes are frankly wrong.
The first people to move over will be people who commute to an office job, or where one parent stays at or works from home. The tradies will wait longer (can’t wait for the vehicle to charge on your way to a call-out!), but in due course some of them will follow too. Rental car fleets will also start moving over at some point. Only after this do we start looking at the long distance traveler, freight transport, and so forth. This is what common sense tells us.
Now I was sitting in Panarotis on Saturday and there was a particularly talkative young man at the table behind me, and I hear the old trope that cars only contribute a small portion of the carbon emissions (compared to say big industry) and are being targeted unfairly. I don’t know that I agree with that, for two reasons. The one is that cars contribute to emissions HERE where I live and breathe, around my house, and the second is that even if cars are a smaller contributor, they are still a significant contributor and one that is much easier to do something about.
As for the rest of the argument, that soon an EV will be the only thing available, I think that is false. I think that as European manufacturers gravitate towards that end, the untransformed part of the world will likely just buy more vehicles from the east. Also, this is they very kind of talk that scares people and causes them to spread FUD about EVs. Imagine, in a world where we are constantly bombarded with rising prices, constantly hearing that soon… you won’t be able to afford transport anymore! That is what people hear. I think it is important to get this right. But I am just a lone voice with a handy soapbox.
For sure we need to see an improvement with the ICE 30% efficiency statistic. And the EV is capable of way better efficiency for transport.
Bring on the changes!
I still don’t understand why manufacturers either focus on hybrids that are sort of meaningless with tiny batteries or on the other side the full electric. The plug in hybrid market is so tiny with only a few premium vehicles available.
What’s the point of talking about green but in a country like SA, most of our power is coming from coal which isn’t green.
Electric vehicles with small ICE makes so much more sense and is so much easier to market… at least to me.
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Elsewhere we mentioned that the Kia EV6 is coming to the country, and there I lamented the fact that a car that SHOULD cost less than 800k will in all likelihood cost 1.2 million. You know, Land Cruiser money.
You know what car you probably could get for 800k, if only Toyota would import it? The RAV4 Prime. It’s a PHEV with around 60km range and an 80km top speed on electric only. Now that is a car that makes an insane amount of sense. Sure, the complexity of two power plants and driving around with both all the time is a little stupid, let’s be clear, but if you can only have ONE car… man, why not!?
I think there may be two good reason for the focus on hybrids.
One, The fuel savings is significant, so a manufacturer trying to hit targets is obviously going to use that. Compare for example the fuel consumption of the Corolla Cross with its Hybrid sibling: 6.3 l/100km on the petrol, 4.3 l/100km on the hybrid. That is worth it!
And two, hybrids actually make a very good test bed for battery development, precisely because the batteries are smaller and work a little harder.
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I was recently researching the phev and came across the rav prime and that seemed ideal… then I looked locally and saw it wasn’t available.
In terms of battery dev, sure I get your point but on that front some of the latest Toyota hybrids are still using NiMH backs and only a select few are using lithium.
Hybrids do make sense for certain driving conditions that can result in savings like as a city run around with lots of stop starts but to be honest, the efficiencies achieved can also be done with Diesel engines.
It sometimes seems like sticking a hybrid badge on a vehicle is more a marketing tactic.
The complexity of moving from a hybrid to a PHEV doesn’t seem to be that much more. You already have a battery, additional electric motor and that just needs to be scaled.
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Agreed… well, with some caveats. First I think there is the issue of duty cycle. The electric motor in your average non-plugin hybrid is probably not designed to run at high speeds for long periods of time. Similarly, the NiMH pack is also not designed for that sort of thing. So moving from ordinary hybrid to PHEV is actually a little more complex. But it does solve one particularly important part, which deserves to be mentioned: Packaging. It does indeed feel as if a sideways move in battery tech combined with slightly beefier mechanicals really isn’t that far away. It just needs a bit of scaling, as you say.
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Now look at this beauty…
https://www.autotrader.co.za/car-for-sale/mini/hatch/cooper/26639791
Just needs a few more miles and another year of age to shed more of the initial devaluation…
Me thinks that is not really going to go down much. Reasons… everybody considering EVs will jump on such, so demand may be pushing prices higher. Also it’s considered a luxury, yea I know, but the market is not logical.
Supply of used EVs are not in abundance, only about an average of 100 EVs per year were sold, ever and we have only some 1000 or so on the road.
Groetnis
I suppose the market will dictate.
BMW i3s are moving into the lower 400k bracket by now (and I think they are better than second-hand Nissan Leafs). They are often low-mileage. Today there is only two for sale on AutoTrader. One is going for 420k. It looks good, has about 100k km on it. 2015 model, so probably has around 80km range on it, realistically. These cars had an 8-year battery warranty, which this one is about to go out of.
The other one is 580k, nogal in my home town. Yesterday it was listed for 600k.
The fact that I have to keep the ICE-vehicle makes it difficult. Ordinarily I’d take what I’ve got, throw in a little bit from the homeloan, finance the last third, and end up with a fairly affordable repayment (from which I can subtract the fuel savings). Having to keep the ICE-vehicle means I don’t have a proper deposit…
EV Trucks … there is a teeny detail in here: USA version.
2015 Volvo 730 has two 150-gallon fuel tanks and averages around 6.5 mpg fully loaded at highway speeds of 65 to 75 mph.
I routinely go 1,000 to 1,400 miles between fill-ups, and it generally takes 15 minutes or less to top off the tanks. That means on a hard week of running, I might spend a total of 45 minutes putting sufficient fuel in the rig to go 4,000+ miles.
Tesla claims their semi will go 500 miles on a full charge. Then it will need an absolute minimum of 30 minutes on the most powerful Supercharger around to recharge to 80% … at which point it’ll only be good for another 400 miles, right?
And there’s the rub. In many states, a trucker can legally and easily drive 700 miles per day. Most OTR truckers won’t even contemplate an EV rig until the range is a guaranteed 800+ miles under full load, at average highway speeds of 65 to 75 mph, across any terrain, and at any temperature, from 125 to -40 Fahrenheit. That way we could drive our 700 miles per day and charge the rig while we take our 10-hour break.
So in order to go 4,000 miles per week, you’re looking at spending well over 300 minutes sitting at a charging station - that’s AT LEAST 5 hours the driver won’t get paid for, vs. the 45 minutes for a diesel rig.
You see, the vast majority of OTR drivers are paid by the mile. We don’t actually get paid for fueling - or charging the batteries. Raise your hand if you’re willing to work at least five extra hours per week without compensation …
And of course, that’s assuming you can find a semi-charging station - I haven’t seen a single one yet.
That’s the true bottleneck. There will need to be several dozen chargers in every single one of the 2000+ truck stops in the country. No trucker wants to pull his Tesla semi (or any other EV rig) into a truck stop needing to charge, only to see that there are only six chargers and thirty rigs waiting in line to charge. He’d be waiting for hours before he even got to the charger to plug in, at which time he’d be wasting another 30 minutes minimum … meanwhile the diesel rig has come, fueled, and gone and is 200 miles farther on down the road.
And I’ll just throw in one more point. Everyone keeps saying how cheap it is to charge an EV vs. fill up a fuel tank. Well, that may be true if you’re charging your car at home, but who’s to say that in the future the truck stops and public charging stations won’t charge several hundred dollars per charge? It’s not like a 75′ semi can squeeze into a crowded car parking lot to plug into a cheaper charger. If the truck stops own the only semi chargers around, they can set the rates and the truckers won’t have any recourse but to pay.
EV semi manufacturers are cheating. Their tractors are considerably heavier than diesel rigs like mine, so they’ve managed to BRIBE THE POLITICIANS into increasing the allowable weight limits for EV semis so they can compete. There are innumerable articles about this, but it boils down to this, from our very own FHWA.gov: ”Vehicle weight limitations - Natural Gas and Electric Battery Vehicles (Sec. 422), which adds to existing vehicle weight limitation exemptions vehicles powered primarily by means of electric battery power and clarifies that these vehicles may exceed the weight limit on the power unit by up to 2,000 pounds.”
So here’s another area where EV semis are drastically inferior. If I know I’m heading to pick up a really heavy (legal) load, I can show up at the shipper with my tanks 3/4 empty. This lightens my rig by 1,300 to 1,400 pounds, increasing my payload capacity. Sure, I have to stop every 400 miles or so to splash a bit of fuel … makes me feel like an EV semi-driver!
EV rigs won’t have that option - can’t take out half your batteries to lighten you up a bit. Guess you’ll have to keep paying off corrupt politicians to cheat your way into being barely competitive.
280 useable gallons x 6.5 average mpg = 1820 miles. Tesla claims full battery = 500 miles. That is how the range compares!
If you don’t like my 100% factual answer, ask a different question.
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Me thinks there may be a little bias there. One use case for long haul. There are inter city, inner city delivery, school and other busses in cities to name just a few.
Navistar EV
Groetnis
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No bias I could pick up on, as it was a long-haul comparison.
Once I was quite interested in trucking in the USA, we cannot begin to compare their levels with ours, unless you drive Cpt into Africa routes. And boy, they do have issues to contend with there.
Deliveries in cities, I agree, EV trucks are perfectly suited for that.
Side comment.
Having driven for a large retailer on contract (for fun), WHY do they send trucks out at peak traffic times? More time, and fuel, not to mention the distress caused by trucks in peak hours, truck drivers included.
I fought against that. Was loved by the drivers and hated by management. Stirring much, “they” said.
Personally, I think Africa is going to become the “dumping” ground for 2nd hand ICE vehicles.
Africa, and SA, does not have what EV needs i.e: (maybe some cities)
- The capacity for electricity generation for millions of vehicles on top of what is.
- It will take years to roll out the charging stations all over SA/Africa, being kinda a 3rd world continent.
- And I would bet, the price to recharge on the road, would become quite interesting.
- The cost of EVs, as in this thread, is still a long way to go before it becomes an everyday option for SA/Africa.
That also irks me about this discussion. This all or nothing thing. Unless I can use this vehicle for absolutely everything… I’m not budging!
It’s just silly. My current car already cannot do everything I need to do. Sometimes I take a plane to get where I am going precisely because the car cannot do it fast enough or cheap enough (and I’m not just talking about overseas, I’m talking CPT to JHB).
I already opted NOT to buy a bakkie for very similar reasons. Why should I drive around 300 days in the year at 10km/liter with an empty load bay when I can just hire a trailer for R200 on the day I do need to haul something?
We already keep different vehicles for different jobs. This is going to be no different.
But as I also indicated earlier, it does come with constraints. Do I have a place to park an extra vehicle? Do I have a place to charge it? Can I afford an extra vehicle? Are there decent rental options in my area, so that maybe I can rent an ICE-vehicle for the long hauls? Things like that. Now regardless of what your answers are to that, I wish people would stop saying that because MY answers are such and such, therefore EVERYONE’s answers must be the same.
Anyway… 
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Me thinks (this is getting dangerous) because the individual person does not believe (confirmation bias and all that) Truck/Bus EVs can work for him, the tech is useless. I have no dog in this fight. I don’t want or need an EV.
Heck I even think this CO2 thing is good for our food, and plants, and therefore good for us. But this is not for conversation on here, as it will attract the ban hammer 
Therefore I am not set on an EV, I need not save the World from CO2. We have many issues to resolve in good ol SA before this EV thing will fly. And anyhoo, the ban is on passenger vehicles, not trucks or trains or ships or anything else.
The concern here as I stated in the OE post is that due to this type of banning on passenger cars and bakkies, we gonna end up being the dumping ground for used stuff, as we will not be able to buy new, nor new parts and the ICE plants locally are in danger of being shut down, or converted. This due to the OEMs not being able to sell any ICE passenger cars, and therefore not build any.
If their ICE lines are dead, and the EV side not profitable… The outcome will be inevitable.
Groetnis
I think we can have a constructive discussion about that. I don’t think we should have one about other more contentious matters, such as those involved in the Bill of Rights regarding race, religion or such. The trouble with such topics is regardless of how level headed we may think we are, if it can even be construed as over the line, it becomes a problem.
So I will start. CO2 is actually a “good” greenhouse gas. Better than Nox or many of those others, precisely because we have an easy way to deal with it: Feed it to plants. That is precisely why the regulators did what they did to VW in the states (with Dieselgate). They actually forced them to make the cars less fuel-efficient and to create more CO2 (but less Nox), for this exact reason.
But, just because CO2 can be dealt with, doesn’t mean we don’t still have a responsibility to balance the books. And I am not convinced that we (as humanity) are presently doing enough. We’re still borrowing more each year than we pay back.
That’s another reason why I am actually in agreement with you (and against the extremist-greenies, if I can call them that), we don’t have to go 100% EV. But I think it is an important tool in the battle.
(We could also just move this to a off-topic thread and hash it out there).
mmm … are not reading it all?
It is not about your car specifically.
Long-distance trucking - not EV viable yet. Cost factor that most 4-wheelers don’t even grasp.
Long distance busses - probably an idea because of the frequent stops.
Short distance trucking/busses - This should become a must.
Long-distance car - make a plan and fly?
Short distance car - EV possible.
Parking problems, you/wife do not want to sell, sounds like a 21st-century problem, and it is yours to solve if you must. 
Indeed! This mob get on their high horse and dictate what you should be doing based on what their take on the environmental situation is.
South Africans (thank heavens!) are more down to earth. Pragmatism and value for money are pretty much what motivates them. Bravo!
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