South Africa's electric vehicle (EV) market has reached a pivotal moment, with consumer demand now outpacing government policy and creating an urgent need for measures that stimulate local adoption, KPMG automotive sector lead Dex Machida says.
Delivering a keynote address at WesBank EVolution 2.0, held at The Forum Conference Venue, in Johannesburg, on July 22, he argued that South Africa's EV policy framework should evolve beyond production incentives to include stronger demand-side measures that accelerate adoption, support charging infrastructure investment and strengthen the country's competitiveness in the global automotive transition.
Additionally, Machida said official EV sales figures understated the pace of growth as they did not fully account for the influx of new market entrants, particularly Chinese manufacturers, that had introduced relatively affordable battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to South Africa.
“Today, that demand has clearly accelerated to the point where it's already getting to the inflection point. The demand side has pretty much overtaken what is happening on the ground from a production perspective,” he said.
He also noted two factors identified in KPMG's Global Automotive Executive Survey, namely charging infrastructure and affordability, which had driven the recent acceleration in EV adoption, with affordability proving to be the key catalyst.
