Now that the fuel price has rocketed to a record level - you may be tempted to consider an electric car instead.

“Electric vehicles are very exciting and one of the biggest expected changes in the automotive sector. In addition to being much 'greener', they have around 30 times fewer working parts which boasts obvious benefits in manufacture, maintenance and reliability,” said Michael Muller, co-founder and managing director of CarZar.co.za.

While we are seeing a spatter of electric vehicles entering our markets, South Africa is still a long way off from seeing electric cars in every garage.

"Adoption will happen first in the most developed, densely populated cities with the highest regulatory incentives (emission controls and tax incentives for consumers and producers)," Muller said. "Even now, adoption in developed markets is still being driven almost solely by emissions regulations and not yet market demand. This will drive the R&D and scale to make it commercially economical for adoption in South Africa, but this will take a long time."

But would you get more bang for your buck by ditching petroleum and switching on your garage plug point?

It is significantly cheaper to get your car going with electricity than petrol.
Assuming an annual distance of around 20,000 kilometres, and a decent consumption rate of 8 litres of petrol per 100 kilometres, you are now looking at R27,328 (inland) and R26,384 (coastal) a year for petrol.

Compare this to the BMW i3 (94 Ah), which runs with a consumption rate of 13.1kWh/100 km and can drive up to 200km per charge.  The means it can use 2,620 kWh of electricity over 20,000km.

Electric vehicles, or EVs, are on track to encroach significantly on the market for vans and short-distance trucking, according to the latest forecast from research firm BloombergNEF (BNEF).

South Africa’s industrial, transport, energy, trade and fiscal policies remain heavily geared towards the private automobile and, more specifically, ones powered by the internal combustion engine (ICE).

The electric vehicle (EV) market is growing globally, with no apparent sign of stopping. According to an article by Neil Oliver, technical marketing manager at Accutronics, one out of every 12 cars purchased in the UK is an EV.

You only have to look at the annual tech ritual that is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) — which kicked off in Vegas this weekend amid a blur of oversized TVs, 5G phones and foldable tablets — to see how important electric vehicles will be in 2020. 

Cars electrify, now farm vehicles. The new 215-page IDTechEx report, "Electric Vehicles and Robotics in Agriculture 2020-2030" explains.

South Africa has the highest emission intensity in the G20 group of industrialised and developing countries. This threatens its commitment to help slow global warming. This disproportionate contribution is driven by the country’s coal-dependent national electricity utility, Eskom.

Turkish company ZY Electric Tractor has developed a fully electrically powered tractor. Mass production of the ZY tractor will commence this year.

With fewer than 7,000 of the more than 12 million vehicles on South Africa’s road networks being emission-free, the country sorely lags behind this global trend and is unlikely to change to these alternatives to any meaningful degree at any time soon.

Electric vehicles are said to be environmentally friendly alternatives to petrol and diesel-powered cars, but this is not the case in South Africa.

Trees, plants, and crops all need carbon dioxide. Electric vehicles are charged with coal-powered electricity and their batteries are made from seriously hazardous materials.