Share

Public charging stations: Can South Africa support electric cars?

accreditation
A BMW i3 charging at a dealership in Cape Town. <i>Image: Wheels24 / Charlen Raymond.</i>
A BMW i3 charging at a dealership in Cape Town. <i>Image: Wheels24 / Charlen Raymond.</i>
Charlen Raymond

Detroit - Around the world, support is growing for electric cars. Automakers are delivering more electric models with longer range and lower prices, such as the Chevrolet Bolt and the Tesla Model 3.

China has set aggressive targets for electric vehicle sales to curb pollution; some European countries aim to be all-electric by 2040 or sooner.

Those lofty ambitions face numerous challenges, including one practical consideration for consumers: If they buy electric cars, where will they charge them?

EV charging in SA

In South Africa, there are three fully electric vehicles on sale in the market: BMW's i3 and i8, and the Nissan Leaf. Various manufacturers have several battery-hybrid vehicles available locally, including Volvo and Mercedes-Benz.

Nissan South Africa says:  "In Gauteng there are more than 90 EV charging stations. These are available at shopping centres and office blocks. 

Follow Wheels24 on Instagram

"There are 9 Nissan dealerships with EV charging stations, 7 of them also sells Nissan LEAF. We also have the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BMW where we can tap into each other’s charging network. Cape Town is also catching up with various charging stations installed across the city."

READ: Pros and cons of electric vehicles in SA - reader

The distribution of public charging stations is wildly uneven around the globe. Places with lots of support from governments or utilities, like China, the Netherlands and California, have thousands of public charging outlets.

Buyers of Tesla's luxury models have access to a company-funded Supercharger network. But in many places, public charging remains scarce. That's a problem for people who need to drive further than the 200 miles or so that most electric cars can travel. It's also a barrier for the millions of people who don't have a garage to plug in their cars overnight.

"Do we have what we need? The answer at the moment is, 'No,'" says Graham Evans, an analyst with IHS Markit.


Have you thought about purchasing an electric vehicle in SA? What are your concerns? Email us


Take Norway, which has publicly funded charging and generous incentives for electric car buyers. Architect Nils Henningstad drives past 20 to 30 charging stations each day on his 35-kilometercommute to Oslo. He works for the city and can charge his Nissan Leaf at work; his fiancee charges her Tesla SUV at home or at one of the world's largest Tesla Supercharger stations, 32km away.

Follow Wheels24 on Instagram

It's a very different landscape in New Berlin, Wisconsin, where Jeff Solie relies on the charging system he rigged up in his garage to charge two Tesla sedans and a Volt. Solie and his wife don't have chargers at their offices, and the nearest Tesla Superchargers are 72 kilometers away.

"If I can't charge at home, there's no way for me to have electric cars as my primary source of transportation," says Solie, who works for the media company E.W. Scripps.

Leading the charge: Nissan celebrates 70 years of electric vehicles

The uneven distribution of chargers worries many potential electric vehicle owners. It's one reason electric vehicles make up less than 1% of cars on the road.

"Humans worst-case their purchases of automobiles. You have to prove to the consumer that they can drive across the country, even though they probably won't," says Pasquale Romano, the CEO of ChargePoint, one of the largest charging station providers in North America and Europe.

Number of charge stations ratio

Romano says there's no exact ratio of the number of chargers needed per car. But he says workplaces should have one charger for every 2.5 electric cars and retail stores need one for every 20 electric cars. Highways need one every 50 to 120km, he says. That suggests a lot of gaps still need to be filled.

Automakers and governments are pushing to fill them. The number of publicly available, global charging spots grew 72% to more than 322 000 last year, the International Energy Agency said. Navigant Research expects that to grow to more than 2.2 million by 2026; more than one-third of those will be in China.

Follow Wheels24 on Instagram

Tesla Inc. — which figured out years ago that people wouldn't buy its cars without roadside charging — is doubling its global network of Supercharger stations to 10 000 in 2017.

BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen and Ford are building 400 fast-charging stations in Europe. Volkswagen is building hundreds of stations across the US as part of its settlement for selling polluting diesel engines. Even oil-rich Dubai, which just got its first Tesla showroom, has more than 50 locations to charge electric cars.


Pitfalls

But there are pitfalls. There are different types of charging stations, and no one knows the exact mix drivers will eventually need. A grocery store might spend $5,000 for an AC charge point, which provides a car with 8 to 24km of range in 30 minutes. But once most cars get 320km or 482km per charge, slow chargers are less necessary. Electric cars with longer range need fast-charging DC chargers along highways, but DC chargers cost $35 000 or more.

That uncertainty makes it difficult to make money setting up chargers, says Lisa Jerram, an associate director with Navigant Research. For at least the next three to five years, she says, deep-pocketed automakers, governments and utilities will be primarily responsible for building charging infrastructure.

There's also the question of who will meet the needs of apartment dwellers. San Francisco, Shanghai and Vancouver, Canada, are now requiring new homes and apartment buildings to be wired for EV charging.

But without government support, plans for charging stations can falter. In Michigan, a utility's $15 million plan to install 800 public charging stations was scrapped in April after state officials and ChargePoint objected.

Solie, the electric car owner in Wisconsin, likes Europe's approach: Governments should set bold targets for electric car sales and let the private sector meet the need.

"If the US were to send up a flare that policy was going to change... investments would become very attractive," he says.


We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
Who we choose to trust can have a profound impact on our lives. Join thousands of devoted South Africans who look to News24 to bring them news they can trust every day. As we celebrate 25 years, become a News24 subscriber as we strive to keep you informed, inspired and empowered.
Join News24 today
heading
description
username
Show Comments ()
Editorial feedback and complaints

Contact the public editor with feedback for our journalists, complaints, queries or suggestions about articles on News24.

LEARN MORE