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| The cheapest new car in South Africa is the Renault Kwids, with over 1,000 a month sold. |
AS transport hack, the two questions I get asked most often are: “Which is the best car?” and “What is the cheapest way to travel?”. The answer to the first is easy — the best car is the one you can afford, which in SA is the Kwid.
CHEAP
Derided by motoring journalists for being a tin can on wafer thin tyres without advanced safety features, the Kwid 1.0 Expression is nevertheless a much safer bet than commuting in a Siyaya and at R140 900, the monthly payments and insurance come to what many young families spend on taxi fees. Young and old drivers have taken note, and Renault dealers are now selling over 1 000 Kwids a
month.
month.
After the Kwid comes the Suzuki Celerio 1.0 GA (R141 400) followed by Mahindra’s KUV 100 1.2 K2+ (R143 k). Both are excellent hatches that were engineered tough to overcome the horror that is India’s roads and weather, and built affordable enough to sell in that frugal market.
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| Paul Parson's with his delivery-bike-turned-moped. |
CHEAPER
In flat but traffic-jammed Cape Town, cycling has long been the fastest way to get into the city bowl, even in that city’s dismal weather.
In steep KZN, commuters who want to bicycle need help, which is why Paul Parsons added a tiny Chinese petrol engine to help power his old delivery bicycle up Maritzburg’s steep hills.
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| Two strokes engines vibrate and make a lot of noise, but they do help up steep hills. |
These two-stroke engines bolt on and sell from R2 300, with assembled bikes available for under R6k.
The drawbacks of two-strokes are their vibration, exhaust gases and noise, which is where electric motors come in. Increasingly popular among mountain bikers, these quiet hub motors sell from R3k for a 1kW motor.
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| Electric-assist cargo bikes from Anywhere Africa, with (from left) Nicho Ntema, Neo Rabotapi and Oliver Higson. |
Note, officially, one needs a vehicle licence for mopeds and ebikes.
The National Road Traffic Act defines a “motor vehicle” as any self-propelled vehicle including a trailer and “a vehicle having pedals and an engine or an electric motor”.
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| This bike uses an electric to help pedal and gas to barbeque. |
However, the act excludes from licensing motorised vehicles controlled by a pedestrian, or weighing less than 230 kilograms and “specially designed and constructed, and not merely adapted, for the use of any person suffering from some physical defect or disability and used solely by such person”.
To date metro traffic officers have included motorised bicycles in this exclusion, perhaps thinking anyone who willingly pedals to work over steep hills must have at least a mental defect.
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| A bus is the cheapest, greenest way to get across provinces. |
CHEAPEST
Why is a bus like a chicken? Because it goes “cheap cheap” — like R150 cheap for a one-way, overnight ticket between Maritzburg’s CBD and Park Station in Johannesburg. To put this price in perspective, just the toll tariffs on this route are R242.
A bus also emits a lot less toxic gases per person than a motorbike or even an electric car that has been charged by Eskom’s coal-powered plants.
... AND CHEATS
Today’s digital savants don’t just do cheap, they cheat the system with digital hacks that put using stuff before owning stuff.
Ride hailers like Uber and Taxify are a good examples of such hacks, but can quickly get expensive. Enter ride sharing that link private drivers with passengers looking to pay for a lift.
• Visit www.jrney.co for more on this.
Another digital hack links licensed drivers with vehicle rental companies that need to get their vehicles back from especially airports. International operator Transfer Car recently opened shop in SA and is now looking for drivers who can move these cars.
• Find more on www.transfercar.co.za.
