Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Diesel vs petrol vs electric car sales in South Africa

Diesel vs petrol vs electric car sales in South Africa
Sales of diesel, petrol & electric cars all fell in 2016 from their 2015 levels reports Business Tech.

Diesel powered vehicles went from 189,000 to 173,000, petrol dropped from 397,000 to 345,000 and electric vehicles went from 79 sales in 2015 to only 41 last year.

A bit of quick mental arithmetic tells me that electric cars are accounting for roughly 0.01% of new vehicle sales in South Africa and at present heading south. As a comparison, as of 2016 plug-in electric vehicles accounted for 29.1% of new car sales in Norway, 6.4% in the Netherlands, 1.37% in the UK and 1.31% in China.

With the pending arrival of Tesla in South Africa with their Model 3, we should see the downtrend in electric vehicle sales in the country permanently reversed. That could be a year or two though as the right hand drive version of the Model 3 will only be coming sometime in the middle of next year.

Until then we will just have to hope that we see a bit more enthusiasm regarding electric vehicles from manufacturers with a presence in SA. Now's there chance to get a head start over Tesla in this country. They need to get there electric vehicles on sale here and advertise the advantages to the public. With the cost of petrol the highest in the world compared to salaries, the cost savings of having an electric car are going to appeal to South Africans. We just need the manufacturers and government to get behind them.

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