The Durban arrival highlighted growing EV choice and charging access, while industry representatives called for policy certainty to support wider adoption. South African Automotive Week (SA Auto Week) 2026 in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, was the destination for electric vehicle (EV) road-trippers from Johannesburg, Cape Town and East London. According to The Electric Mission, the 2026 road…
Rubicon’s Hilton Musk Rubicon’s public charging network is profitable and grew usage markedly in two months as fuel prices spiked, the company’s e-mobility head has told Watts & Wheels host William Kelly. Hilton Musk said usage climbed roughly 30% in a single month, then another 30% the month after. “We thought it was a fluke,”…
Winstone Jordaan Winstone Jordaan was building charging infrastructure before South Africa had electric cars to plug into it. GridCars began developing its backend platform in 2010. The first EVs arrived in 2013. In this episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, the GridCars founder tells William Kelly why the hardware was never the hard part….
WhatsApp Plus, Meta Platforms’ optional paid subscription for its messaging app, is now available to South African users at R28.99/month, with the first month free. The tier is part of a broader push by Meta to build subscription revenue beyond its core advertising business. The company announced the global roll-out of consumer “Plus” subscriptions across…
Experts say stronger government incentives and clearer policy frameworks are needed to accelerate EV charging. (Image created via Gemini) Regulatory uncertainty and lack of government funding are major obstacles to scaling South Africa’s charging network, says the electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure sector. While SA has made meaningful progress in building public charging infrastructure over…
Charge chairman Joubert Roux Off-grid EV charging infrastructure company Charge (formerly Zero Carbon Charge) is planning a public investment offering in the coming months, bypassing the JSE in favour of a token-based exchange called Mesh. Joubert Roux, the company’s founder, revealed the plans in an interview with TechCentral on Wednesday and said Charge is currently…
If left unchanged, the new policy could have unintended consequences for SA’s broader economic and energy objectives, warns Zero Carbon Charge. The South African National Roads Agency’s (Sanral’s) proposed overhaul of its rest and service facilities (RSF) policy could derail private investment in electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure at a critical time for the country’s energy…
In a major bid to reclaim its dominance in the Chinese market, BYD has unveiled a suite of high-performance hardware upgrades, including the latest generation of its “Blade” batteries and a new ultra-fast flash charging architecture. The announcement, made in Shenzhen on Thursday, arrives as the world’s largest electric-vehicle manufacturer faces a deepening sales slump…
Zero Carbon Charge has broken ground on two off-grid solar-powered EV stations along the N3 in the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal. They will be the first fully off-grid, solar-powered and ultra-fast EV charging stations on the N3, one of the country’s busiest and most important transport routes. Zero Carbon Charge built its first off-grid charge…
China’s BYD, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric cars, is set to make the biggest single investment yet in South Africa’s nascent electric vehicle (EV) sector. In an exclusive interview with TechCentral in Johannesburg, BYD Executive Vice President Stella Li disclosed the company’s plans to roll out a national network of ultra-high-speed charging stations. Read:…
