You read about the epic South African EV road trip - now watch the documentary

TechCentral readers will remember that the publication took part recently in an epic road trip across South Africa in five electric cars. Now there’s an equally epic documentary about the event – and you can watch it here!

The road trip, in October, involved a four-day road trip across South Africa to test the feasibility of driving electric vehicles (EVs) across the country, including to remote villages in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape and across countless mountain passes.

The trip, which took in remote towns in the Karoo, including Nieu-Bethesda and Prince Albert (via the Swartberg pass), came ahead of Naamsa | The Automotive Business Council’s SA Auto Week event in Cape Town.

Watch the documentary

The road trip involved — and was led by — Naamsa, KPMG, Accenture, Woolworths, the Industrial Development Corporation, the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth Development Office, the Electric Mission, and Wesbank and FNB, and TechCentral.

The journey was aimed at bringing a fresh focus to the challenges that could face EV owners doing long-distance road trips in South Africa, especially in more remote parts of the country.

All five vehicles – a Volvo XC40, a BMW iX50, a Mercedes-Benz EQE 350+, a BYD Seal and a Volkswagen ID.4 – made it to Cape Town, despite a few nerve-wracking hours in Colesberg and Jansenville (a hamlet in the Eastern Cape).

The team

Apart from a content production crew (made up of Jonathan Pinkhard, Frank Meyer and Shaun Abdul), the team on the road trip consisted of:

Greg Cress, principal director for automative and e-mobility at Accenture
Hideki (Dex) Machida, automotive industry leader at KPMG
Feroz Koor, group sustainability officer at Woolworths Holdings
Hiten Parmar, executive director at the Electric Mission
Kival Singh, head of sustainability and ESG solutions at FNB South Africa
Mikel Mabasa, CEO of Naamsa – The Automotive Business Council
Nathan Fredericks, senior industry development planner at the Industrial Development Corporation
Nicholas Brooks, first secretary – senior energy adviser for South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Project
Tshetlhe Litheko, chief policy officer at Naamsa – The Automotive Business Council
Duncan McLeod, editor of TechCentral