Five electric cars. Four provinces. More than 2 000km of driving. Some of South Africa’s most picturesque mountain passes and out-of-the-way small towns.

This Thursday, 10 October, a team of about 15 people – including TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod – will set off on an epic journey across South Africa to determine the feasibility (or otherwise) of driving electric vehicles long distances to some of the remotest villages in the country.

The road trip, being spearheaded by Naamsa – The Automotive Business Council, will depart a location in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs in the small hours of Thursday morning, targeting the Eastern Cape hamlet of Nieu-Bethesda as the first overnight stopover on the four-day journey, which will end at around 5pm on Sunday in Cape Town – some 2 200km later.

The trip will also take in Gqeberha – previously Port Elizabeth – before venturing west to Prince Albert and on to the Mother City, via many small towns along the way.

The trip, which comes ahead of the South African Auto Week conference in Cape Town (15-18 October), will be covered in detail by TechCentral, with at least one daily update from the road – and possibly many more.

The cars

The five electric vehicles that will be used for the trip are the:

BMW iX xDrive 50
Volvo XC40 P8
VW ID.4 Pro
BYD Seal AWD Excellence
Mercedes-Benz EQA 250

According to Naamsa, the purpose of the road trip is multi-faceted. It will bring focus to the realities and challenges facing EV owners in South Africa, and will also:

Showcase some of the current EVs in South Africa and their capabilities;
Illustrate the maturity (or otherwise) of the public EV charging network in South Africa;
Highlight the improvements needed in infrastructure so as one day to support the large-scale traffic flow of EVs (both private and commercial) along South Africa’s main corridors (and some less-used routes); and
Understand the economic impacts of EV-based tourism into more rural areas.

TechCentral will also be sharing details of the journey on its social media accounts on X, Facebook and LinkedIn – and bringing readers a feast of information from the experts coming along on the journey. We’ll have more on who they are when the rubber hits the road from Thursday. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media