South Africa’s electric vehicle market is growing quickly, albeit off a very small base. Battery-electric vehicle sales rose 96% year on year in the first quarter of 2026, according to Naamsa – the Automotive Business Council, almost doubling on the same period in 2025 as record fuel prices push more buyers to reconsider how they get around.

Fully electric sales in South Africa are still counted in the hundreds a month – March 2026 set a monthly record at just 389 units – and battery-electric vehicles remain well below 1% of the total new vehicle market. Naamsa’s figures also understate the picture, since several Chinese brands do not fully report their local sales.

What has changed is the economic and geopolitical backdrop: inland 95 unleaded petrol rose to a record R28.06/l from 3 June, the highest in the country’s history, after three successive months of increases driven by conflict in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The temporary fuel-levy relief used to cushion the blow is being withdrawn and disappears entirely on 1 July.

Against that, electricity has looked comparatively stable. The Electric Mission, a non-profit that tracks the country’s mobility transition, says South Africa has now gone more than a year without load shedding, easing one of the most persistent consumer objections to EVs – that the grid could not support them. The organisation estimates the local fleet at about 7 940 passenger EVs, 562 commercial trucks and 134 commercial passenger vehicles.

Hiten Parmar, the organisation’s executive director, said the near-doubling of sales reflects buyers responding to economic reality. Petrol and diesel prices have grown volatile while electricity costs stay comparatively predictable, he said, and after more than a year of grid stability the market is, in his words, starting to grasp that “EVs make the most financial sense”.

One exception

In a recent interview with TechCentral’s EV show, Watts & Wheels, Parmar argued that the obstacles most often raised against EVs locally have largely fallen away, with one exception. The technology is no longer the problem – current models have ample range – and charging infrastructure continues to expand. What remains is price. Import duties and the ad valorem levy push sticker prices well above equivalent petrol models, and with roughly 64% of new cars sold for under R400 000, a battery-electric vehicle at R600 000 or more does not enter most buyers’ consideration. The encouraging shift, he said, is that fully electric models have begun arriving below R400 000 – the price point at which volumes start to build.

The clearest economics are in the commercial sector, which Parmar said is leading the transition, with fleet operators reporting total-cost-of-ownership savings of up to 25%. Because those savings grow with distance, the vehicles that make the soonest financial sense are those covering the most kilometres.

The competitive picture beyond South Africa is less rosy. Parmar warned that the country risks losing future manufacturing and supply-chain investment – and the jobs that go with it – if government does not move quickly on supply-side policy and incentives. Morocco has overtaken South Africa in passenger-vehicle production and, by some measures, in total output, pulling in EV and battery investment on the strength of its proximity to Europe.

The Electric Mission's Hiten Parmar — The Electric Mission’s Hiten Parmar

In the EU, South Africa’s largest vehicle export market, battery-electric cars made up 19.7% of new registrations in the first four months of 2026, up from 15.3% a year earlier, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, as the bloc moves towards its 2035 cut-off for new combustion-engine sales. The International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2026 expects electric cars to account for about 28% of new cars sold worldwide this year.

For now the local signal is one of momentum rather than scale. South Africans are warming to EVs, but the gap between an electric vehicle and its petrol equivalent – and between South Africa and the countries competing for the next wave of automotive investment – still comes down to policy and price. — © 2026 NewsCentral Media