A special advisor to the Industrial Development Corporation and Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has expressed confidence that the government policy for South Africa’s transition to new energy vehicles will “be a decent result” to take the domestic automotive industry forward in the country’s transition to NEVs.
“There is a lot of commitment in getting this right. I know there is a lot of commitment in finding the right balance and the best version of this for South Africa. He said these companies mentioned a few things the country needs to consider first – one of the major issues being that SA has little to no supply chain of battery components.Auto sector gets insistent about policy certainty on new energy vehiclesHaffejee said this means that if a battery cell manufacturing facility is built in South Africa, all the gear needed to assemble the battery cells would have to be imported and the majority of them then exported out of the country again in vehicles.
However, Haffejee said the missing element between that refining stage and battery cell manufacturing is that South Africa has to invest now in battery components.“Once we start to have that supply developed in South Africa, not only do we take away the risk of having China have 95% of the capability of the world and a structural strength for the next decade, we start to have our strength in South Africa,” said Haffejee.