SA’s diminishing status as the production hub of the African motor industry will shrink faster if government continues to dither on the local future of electric vehicles (EVs), says Mikel Mabasa, CEO of the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa).
He told a press conference on Monday the local industry was also experiencing a technical brain-drain, as motor companies in Europe, Asia and Africa poached SA automotive engineers to work on EV technologies.
“We are losing skills,” he said.
The government is a year behind schedule in publishing a policy White Paper to encourage the local manufacture and sale of EVs. Mabasa said that while SA vacillated, countries such as Morocco and Egypt were increasing vehicle manufacturing capacity and pressing ahead with EV strategies.
In 2021, SA accounted for 62.3% of the continent’s production capacity. A year later, it was 53% and “soon we will be below 50%”.
Mabasa is particularly concerned about exports, which account for 63% of vehicles made in SA. Most go to Europe, where petrol and diesel internal combustion engines (ICE) will be banned in many markets from 2030. “The Europeans have been very clear and said they will not accept our vehicles from that date,” Mabasa said.
Vehicle exports
He was speaking shortly before Naamsa released figures underlining the importance of exports. The industry shipped 41,474 vehicles to foreign customers in September — not far short of the 47,786 sold in the local market.
Compared with September 2021, exports more than doubled last month, from 20,275. The big winners were manufacturers of light commercial vehicles. Their exports, almost all of them bakkies, more than trebled from 5,806 to 17,691 units.
For context, September 2021 was a miserable month for exports, as the knock-on effects of earlier riots, shortages of components, temporary plant closures and cyberattacks on Transnet operations, including ports, all took their toll on production.
Still, with Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford, BMW and Mercedes-Benz all working multiple shifts to meet current demand, aggregate exports so far this year are 14.4% ahead of the same period in 2021.
Domestic sales
Domestic sales of new vehicles grew by 10.8% year on year in September. SA customers bought 47,786 new cars and commercial vehicles last month — up from 43,147 in September 2021. Car sales of 32,392 outperformed last year’s 29,537 by 9.7%.
Light commercial vehicles improved by 14.9%, medium commercials by 15.3%, heavy commercials by 3.8% and extra-heavies by 0.7%.
“The rise in sales was encouraging, considering they were achieved in tough trading conditions due to a variety of factors on top of load-shedding and the interest-rate hike,” said Alex Boavida, vice-chair of the National Automobile Dealers’ Association. “These included an ongoing stock supply shortage and a stock mix that is not ideal. With factories struggling to keep new vehicle production on schedule, delivery times are becoming increasingly difficult to predict. In turn, dealers are finding it difficult to keep clients interested in specific models”.
Aggregate sales of all new vehicles for the first nine months of 2022 totalled 391,936. That was 13.4% more than the 345,503 at the same stage last year. Car sales were 21.3% higher at 271,179 from 223,572.
Only a few of those were EVs — though demand is accelerating. By the end of August 2021 just 242 EVs had been sold in SA, Mabasa said. By the same stage this year, the number was 2,689 — an increase of 1,011%. Most of those were SA-made Toyota Corolla Cross hybrids, using dual ICE and EV motors, but sales of plug-in EVs also grew rapidly off a tiny base.
Update: October 4 2022
This story contains vehicles sales data, for September
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.