What paperclips and evee sales have in common

Norway gave the world Thor and more evee sales per person than anywhere else on earth, including the Tesla3. 

NORWAY has given the world the paperclip, the cheese slicer, Thor (and his reincarnation Petter Solberg) as well as Vikings, so when car dealers there report they can no longer sell ICE cars, dealers in South Africa better take heed.

For non-petrolheads, ICE stands for internal combustion engine, the tried and trusted, fossil fuel guzzling, air-polluting unit that the rest of world — including us in ‘Sefrika’, still use to move our vehicles.

Norwegian dealers cannot give away ICE cars because buyers there want subsidised evees — or electric vehicles. They are spoiled for choice, with 28 evees to pick from, ranging from this year’s best-selling Audi e-tron (5 185 units) to the recently launched Mercedes-Benz eVito van (17 units).

Motorists in southern Africa are not yet spoiled for choice when it comes to evees, but “halo cars” like the fully-electric Jaguar I-Pace and BMW i3, as well as the much more affordable Nissan Leaf,
herald the coming wave of evee offerings on our dealer floors.

Much lower running costs

Jaguar last week said in a statement the migration from internal combustion to purely electric motoring will require a shift in mindset for South African drivers, which behavioural adjustments will be made easier by the fuel savings.

“The practice of topping up from your very own wall socket or dedicated wall box, most often while you sleep, is a tasty proposition and far more convenient than stopping to fill up while on the move as is necessary with traditional ICE,” Jaguar said.

The I-Pace has a range of up to 470km, and Jaguar last year proved this by driving from Johannesburg to Durban. But at a starting price of R1,68 million, excluding the home charger that costs another R30 000, the I-Pace is clearly not yet aimed at the middle classes.

Jaguar says the I-Pace would cost only around R180 to “fill up” at home, working on an average electricity cost of R2 per kW/h.

Using these figures, the cost of driving an I-Pace works out to roughly 38 cents per kilometre, about half that of a comparable V6 diesel engine, Jaguar said.

The Nissan Leaf, which has a woeful range compared to the I-Pace, has become the budget buyers’ choice around the world, with 2 604 sales in Norway this year.

Nissan’s lower prices for its electric offerings is also why Drivelectric in Kenya, the first company there to provide e-mobility solutions, has leased an all-electric Nissan e-NV200 to GreenSpoon, Kenya’s first artisan online food store, since November 2019.

Drivelectric’s founder, Francis Romano, reported the electric van is some 60% cheaper to run than the petrol van. The petrol van drives further, delivering on average 105 km/day, at an average costs R2,16/km, compared to electric van, which drives on average 50 km/day, at a cost of R0,83/km.

“It’s really good and also profitable for fleet operators to switch to all-electric vans and enjoy all those very clean electrons with 93% of Kenya’s electricity coming from renewable energy sources,” Romano told Clean Tech.

Converting ICE to Evee

Meanwhile, more mechanics and enterprising car owners who don’t want to add their exhaust fumes to our lungs are either adding electric motors to their fossil fuel vehicles, or replacing the entire fuel drivetrain with an all electric unit.

Your humble scribe did the latter to an old Daewoo Matiz with much help from meister mechanic Jens Denk.

Denk is now in Namibia, where he and three partners have registered Electric Vehicles Namibia to cheaply convert bakkies and small cars into hybrid or full electric vehicles — and all of them solar powered.

Marcus and Marinne from Namibia with one of their solar-charged fat wheels ebikes.

Pioneering Namibian company www.eBikes­4Africa are meanwhile steadily growing their network of solar powered charging stations that power affordable electric bicycles at prices that Namibia’s indigent rural population can afford.

South Africa’s dealers do not have to rush into changing their show rooms to offer electric cars.

We are at least a decade behind when it comes to buying electric vehicles, but the unexpected benefit of clear skies that emerged during lockdown has made many more motorists aware of just how polluting our cars are.
The end of the ICE age is coming, and forewarned is forearmed for our local dealers.