Mureza Prim8 sedan starting deliveries from 2024 with a price strating from R225 000
Details is thin on the website, but TopAuto has more detail in their article https://topauto.co.za/news/88513/r225000-south-african-made-electric-car-launching-in-2024/
At that price it would be a popular option, depending on if they can deliver on the specs.
There is a very distinct whiff coming off that article. Probably just another scheme to fleece investors and/or the IDC for development funds.
A 2024 release would mean that manufacturing facilities are already set up, and prototypes being tested - but somehow all they show are renderings?
On the topic of EVs. The struggle is definitely still real.
Iâm currently in Europe. For Saturday, if all works out, I rented an EV for driving the roughly 200km to the airport. I have to hand the car back with a specific level of charge (or the same as it started with). Doesnât seem weird, you have to do the same with a petrol car.
Chargers at the airport is maybe 22kW, sometimes only 11kW. Getting roughly 30kWh back into it, therefore takes somewhere between 1.5 and 3 hours. Unless you can find a DC fast charger somewhere.
That means you have to be at the destination 2-3 hours earlier than with a comparable petrol car.
Alternatively, you can hand the car back in with a low battery, and take the hit on the recharge plus admin fee. Which may well be acceptable.
Anyway, Iâll see how this pans out. Maybe by Monday, I can tell you what a Kia Niro is like.
Follow-up. I go the âor similarâ part of the deal. That is, not a Kia Niro, instead I got a Polestar.
Drove it 10km in 5pm Groningen traffic. Not that bad compared to Cape Town, in fact quite tame in many ways, but of course I have the entire stress of driving on the other side of the road, plus slightly different yield-from-the-right rules, bicycles, pedestrians, and pouring rain.
Itâs fancy enough, with navigation straight in the main cluster, electrically adjustable seats with position memory (2 by the looks of it), big old flat screen. No ignition, you unlock the car with the remote fob and it is already on when you get in. Foot on the brake, pull the gear lever back, and itâs ready to go.
With a 450km range, range anxiety should not be a thing. Well, thatâs probably not on the highway, weâll see tomorrow.
This morning the boss handed me the keys to his Volvo PHEV (Diesel), and said he had a meeting to take on the way (on the phone) and I needed to drive. So now I also felt what a PHEV is like. Not bad at all.
Follow-up next, here is a trick for when youâre in Dutch-country. Search google maps in the local vernacular. If you want to find good charge stations, search for âoplaadpuntâ. That works significantly better than the English terms.
Enter your destination on the GPS. Then a little recharge symbol will appear on the map. Click it, and it will show all charge stations within range, time/distance off-route, and star rating.
Actually, the GPS routing/battery range setup is extremely well integrated. Range estimates will be within a few %, and if it sees you have < 30% range at destination, it will start recommending recharge points.
As long as you use GPS nav, it will be almost impossible to run out of battery. It will nag you mercilessly before you leave the range of the last recharge point.
Alrighty! Now I can give a better review of this car. It has all the bells and whistles (as you expect for a 60k Euro car). Adaptive cruise control. Lane keep assist. You can choose if you want it to creep like a slushbox-transmission or stand still until you hit the pedal (my preference). The built-in screen is Android based and appears to have its own battery (it shows a state of charge different to the car, like a tablet). The good thing about this, is that it uses plain Google Maps. When you hit the search icon, the option right at the top is âoplaadstationâ.
I ended up charging at a Van Der Valk Hotel not far outside Amsterdam. It was a 300kW charger, but at the peak I did 150kW, and it slowed down to around 18kW by the time I left (which was at 94%). It took maybe 25 minutes to charge from 54% to 94%.
Cost of charge was quite expensive. It was 25 Euro for roughly 150km. A petrol car would have been slightly less. But this was a very expensive charger (over 80 euro cents per kWh).
On account of this being a rental, and me not being an a-hole, I didnât abuse the car, so I cannot tell you about 0-100km/h times.
What I can say, is if this is the future of mobility⊠bring it on!
And yet another post on this, but I need to rant a little about how TERRIBLE the charging experience is for someone who doesnât know how your system works.
The particular charge station I was using was by a company called Allego (not to be confused with the Italian musical term Allegro). First strike really⊠picking a name that similar to mess with music geeks like me⊠but okay.
On this charge station there is a huge LCD screen and some buttons. You would expect this LCD screen to provide some instructions on how to use the station. You would be wrong to expect that. There is nothing explaining how to use it. There is a credit card reader on the front, but at that point it seems to do nothing.
I finally ask for help from a Dutch couple returning to their car (who also remarks that really, I should know this stuff, because I work for a company in that area⊠the downsides of wearing âbedrijfskledingâ, aka a blue jacket), and they explain that first you tap your credit card on the card reader on the main screen, then you pick which handle you want to charge with, then you plug in the car, and then you tap the credit card reader with the same card. OK, now the car is charging.
25 minutes later, I have to figure out how to disconnect it. There is a big flashing green light around one button and on the screen above it there is text showing â1 active sessionâ. I press the button, and it gives me some info on how the charge is going, state of charge, time, cost, etc. No indication on how to stop it.
I decide to just repeat the process. I tap the credit card on both the screen and the card reader. At this point I hear a clunk as it disconnects, and I get billed 25 Euro. Unplug the car⊠OK, I guess that was it. Would have been so much nicer if some self-confidence was instilled by the equipment.
So I drive down to an area called Alphen aan de Rijn to visit a friend, and there is a 17kW charger according to google maps. No credit card reader, but there is a QR code. I scan the code, and I get a page telling me how to apply for one of these poles in my neighbourhood. Gaaah!
Move to another pole, again from Allego. I need an app called SMOOV. Google Play however says it is not available in my country. Which sort-of makes sense but also not: I mean I am not IN MY country right now, but I am IN YOURS and I want to do some stuff here. Can I change my google play country? Yes, once a year. OK, not useful.
(In hindsight, I should have just made a new account, say it is in the Netherlands, and used that to install the app, but I was quite fed-up at this point).
My friend lends me a connection via a long extension cord, and I charge at a blistering 12A, to add 4% to the battery.
In the end I manage to drop it off at the airport above the required state of charge (otherwise they bill you for it, plus admin fee). At that point, really, I was okay with just taking the recharge+admin hit.
Will I do it again? You bet! 
I love EVs, but in this case I have to be honest and admit that a 127% increase doesnât mean much on a low base of only 220.
The other countries are impressive though. And if you hang around much in Europe, there are so many Teslas around, and also KIA EV6, Hyundai Ioniq, I saw a Peugeot EV going through the KFC drivethrough (yes, they have KFC in NL). In SA, seeing an EV is still a rare sight. I think there are less than 10 of them in my home town (4 i3 cars including my own, and a Volvo, and probably a few less than obvious eTrons and the odd Taycan⊠but that is a guess). In Europe, it is commonplace.
SA sales passenger cars for 2022 was 363,092, only 500 was EVs or hybridsâŠ
Groetnis
If it doubles again in the second half of 2023, and then again in the first quarter/half of 2024⊠then we can start saying there is a trend.
But in this regard, I see only two options. Either we join the trend, or we get left behind. Not many other options on the table.
It also depends on how many were imported and available to be sold. But affordability is still a big problem. Weâll need government incentives as the tax is just too much at the moment.
@jykenmynie EVâs are getting cheaper and cheaper every day as volumes increase and component prices continually come down. Chinese small EVâs are now coming in at ± the same price as comparable ICE cars.
This trend is working its way up the size chain and it is only a matter of time until EVâs and ICE vehicles are pretty much the same cost to purchase, forecasts are for this to happen within the next 5-8 years as we are at a tipping point at the moment worldwide on volume. EVâs are obviously much cheaper to run.
Big issue is going to be the loss of value in EVâs, we have seen three price reductions from Tesla this year and this is probably set to continue. Not great knowing that you are going to take a bath on your cars resale value when you want to sell it in 4 years time as you will be able to purchase a new EV for half the price you are paying for one right now.
Enter the republic of Canukistan, hybrid truck
https://youtu.be/ROtRiO5rECk?si=zbainIcGWyfN__GF
Groetnis
There was an interesting article in the Guardian last week about how grids all over the world need upgrading and extending, and quickly.
Because the demand for cleaner energy has increased the demand for electricity.
EG people are told not to use those old-fashioned gas boilers for water heating but to use heat pumps. And building codes are changed so that new developments or refurbishments must use heat pumps. And Joe Public is encourage to make the switch.
But energy is still required. OK⊠you cut down on all that nasty fossil gas, but now you need more electricity. And that can come from renewables, but the grid has to have nodes for the renewable source to connect, and it has to be able to convey that power to where itâs needed.
The UK has a bottle neck on itâs grid that hampers North/South transmission. This was fine as long as England and Scotland each had their own smoke belching power stations. But now Scotland has lots of wind power, and the grid company and the energy resellers would like to transmit that South, but the grid canât move all of it.
Also there are now reports of wind farms getting built in England especially, that are on time, deliver as expected, but they are going to wait years in some cases before they can connect to the grid, and before the grid can move all that power around.
Because as the demand for electricity goes up, existing grids may not have capacity.
How all the planning wasnât done is an interesting question.
China, of course, has made massive investments not just in generation, but also in the grid so that it can move all that green electricity around.
Now that guy makes so much sense, I get goosebumps sommer because.
WOW! Respect.
I hosed myself laughing at the cheap headlights, and the indicators when compared to new vehicles today.
âBuild cars to last 30-40 years, fridges 10+ yearsâ ⊠I agree.
Convert ICE ⊠now where have I heard that before?
The transmission grid was designed for smoke belching centralised power stations. These then distributed the electricity all over the place.
Now we have RE power generation all over the place. Not so easy to repurpose the transmission lines or to move themâŠ
PS: I gather HVDC can provide a more flexible means of doing this rather than the AC distribution method.
If you refer to utility scale, granted. For residential and commercial, if the grid can deliver, the grid can wheel from there back too. A Virtual generator is fairly easy to control, look at the Tesla battery in residential and their autobidder and how they control PV and battery to form a VPP (virtual power plant)
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