South Africa’s first electric minibus taxi, eKamva, was unveiled at the Smarter Mobility Africa Summit in Johannesburg today.



It was launched alongside an integrated electric vehicle (EV) business model and charging infrastructure called ‘flx EV’.



The prototype electric minibus is a project by GoMetro, Powerfleet, formerly MiX Telematics, alongside electronics manufacturer HSW, ACDC Dynamics’ charging network, and Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Engineering.



The 15-seater electric minibus has a 70kWh battery capable of a 200km range for commutes; and 80% of its battery recharges within 45 minutes from its 50kW DC charging support.&nbsp;



Justin Coetzee, CEO of GoMetro, tells FORBES AFRICA that the journey started two years ago, when the world started going electric. “We asked ourselves, why isn’t there an electric minibus?”



Most electric buses available were 9m in length, so after a challenging search across Europe and China, GoMetro eventually found a Chinese model that could be turned into a South African-specific minibus.



“If we’re going to electrify the minibus sector, we’re going to have to do it ourselves. This is a proudly South African project alongside our industrial partnerships,” says Coetzee.



The flx EV website will soon allow minibus taxi owners and operators to apply to be added to the waiting list, while the flx app will let owners manage fleets, monitor vehicle status, prepay for charging, and find its nearest charging hub.



GoMetro will be taking eKamva on a roadshow later this year, targeting taxi ranks, associations, and hubs in South Africa’s Western Cape.



“That to me is the highlight – the industry is at the start of the journey with us, so we have to make sure that whatever they want out of an electric taxi, we listen,” adds Coetzee.



GoMetro plans to build a hub at the Century City taxi rank in Cape Town, and Stellenbosch, and hopes to have its first 10 to 20 electric taxis operating by the second half of 2025.



“There’s a huge market of private sector van usage for people movement, which goes beyond the taxi industry that we will be addressing, such as staff transport, hotel shuttles etc, but first, we need to get our model right,” says Coetzee.



Rudi Kriel, transport economist and Head of Programme at GoMetro, shares that the eKamva will either be sold outright, through a leasing model or a different type of model, such as purchasing the vehicle but leasing the battery, so the buyer still owns the asset.



“The battery will stay in the vehicle, but the ownership remains with flx EV. You just pay a subscription fee per month to have access to the battery, charging facilities and the like; it’s a model commonly used in Africa,” says Kriel.



GoMetro hopes the taxi industry will adopt the new technology on the electric minibus, which would ultimately improve operations, with its claim of up to 70% lower monthly running costs.



“At the end of the day, the taxi industry are business people, right? If you give them something they can save money on, they will be interested. And that’s the plan here, to save people operating costs, and to improve the environment,” says Kriel.



While no pricing has been confirmed for the eKamva, Coetzee hints at a ballpark figure of between R1 million (approximately $57,730) to R1.5 million ($86,600).

Image supplied

‘A Proudly South African Project’: Start Of The Journey For The Country’s First Electric Minibus Taxi

It’s a business that has seen blood and conflict. It’s an industry that’s blocked the streets in anger. Yet, with more than 15 million customers a day, it can make you a fortune. That’s why people in South Africa are fighting over the taxi industry.
In Johannesburg, known as the City of Gold, the taxi business can mean gold for the grandchildren… or can it? As South Africa goes through tough economic times, the owners of this industry are also feeling the pinch. Conflict is brewing. Most drivers are angry with the threat of a strike looming nearer each day.
The customers aren’t happy either. Every day, millions of South Africans move through the thousands of taxi ranks around the country. They may struggle to do so in future. Many are struggling as the cost of using taxis keeps increasing.
“If you’re looking from one where I’m from, it’s already R18 ($1.35), so that makes it R36 ($2.70) a day just to get to Johannesburg. Sometimes I catch two taxis, so we’re talking plus minus R60 ($4.50), R70 ($5.30) a day,” says a commuter at the Noord Taxi Rank, one of South Africa’s busiest.
“If the taxi fare were to go up I would cry because that means everything will go up as well,” says another.
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The numbers tell the story: 40% of 56 million South Africans use public transport.
Nine million people take buses, two million use trains, and the taxis get the lion’s share, with over 15 million customers a day. Sixty nine percent of all homes use minibus taxis. That’s almost a staggering 5.5 billion taxi trips every year.
In an office far from the honking horns of the streets, Sihle Mkhize is fighting for his fellow taxi drivers. Mkhize owns six taxis and is the face of the biggest taxi association in the country, Faraday Taxi Association.
“I can’t give you the exact number but we have over 3,000 taxis, because we have 114 taxi ranks and routes. Because of the capacity of the routes we have, we are the biggest association in South Africa,” says Mkhize.
<div id="attachment_33907" style="width: 511px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33907" class=" wp-image-33907" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Taxi-594-e1508395960509-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="501" height="332" />Toyota Quantum taxis drive through Johannesburg. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
The Toyota Quantum is a four-wheeled fly in the ointment. It came to South Africa from Japan in 2006 with its price tag around R220,000 ($16,700). The government encouraged everyone to buy them to modernize the industry. By 2008, it escalated to R300,000 ($22,800), which was a worry for drivers.
“There was a complaint that because the Quantum is too expensive at R300,000, Toyota should rather build them from scratch here in South Africa. They agreed and there was a six-month period where the Quantums were out of the market. They then came back in November 2015 at a heftier price tag of R360,000 ($27,400). At the beginning of this year, in January, it was R400,000 ($30,400),” says Mkhize.
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It’s even worse now. The Toyota Quantum is now manufactured in Durban, with its price around R500,000 ($38,000). Not too far shy of the price of a house.
“There’s no difference now, whether they assemble it here or not. We wanted Toyota to build it here so it can be cheaper; instead it’s more expensive now. It’s a burden because it now wants a R15,000 ($1,150) instalment. In our line of work, it’s difficult to increase taxi fare because we understand that the commuters using our taxis get paid next to nothing where they work,” says Mkhize.
The organization that fields these complaints in the taxi industry is the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO). It represents more than 100 taxi associations in the Gauteng region alone, and is the biggest taxi union in the country. Ralph Jones, its Chairman in Johannesburg, is threatening to strike.
“Let us have a strike which will target SA Taxi Finance, where they were charging a lot of interest rates at 28%. Their repayments were over six years, at R15,000 ($1,150), so when you calculate that it’s an amount over R1 million ($76,000). How can you buy an asset that costs around R500,000 for over R1 million?” says Jones.
The man whose job it is to try to help people afford these taxis is David Hurwitz, the CEO of Transaction Capital, which provides financing for the taxi industry.
“Our cost of funding to our clients is higher, our offering is higher than a bank&#8217;s. Our finance would be at about 24.9%, that would be the interest rate. We are about 6% higher than a bank,” says Hurwitz.
<div id="attachment_33908" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33908" class=" wp-image-33908" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Taxi-575-e1508396103497-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Taxis in Johannesburg. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Hurwitz says this is due to financing people who banks wouldn’t fund, which makes the risk higher. In negotiations, lower rates will come at a cost.
“What we’ve said to the taxi industry is that we will drop our rates slightly. Unfortunately what that means is that a certain segment of our customer base that typically would be able to qualify for funding, now won’t,” says Hurwitz.
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Then there’s government. Many claim that all of this is merely government trying to phase out taxis by the backdoor.
“At the forefront of all of these issues, we are certain that this is another way that government is trying to phase out taxis. They want us to struggle paying for these cars so they can be repossessed. In order for us to be able to afford them, we have to increase prices for our passengers, who will then run away from us and go on buses, the very buses government is introducing,” says Mkhize.
“We carry the same passengers, same as buses. But because government wants to see us defeated, it puts us together with private cars on the roads and we face heavy traffic, while buses have designated lanes. All this to take away passengers from us and send them to buses, another way of phasing us out because no passenger wants to be late to work,” says Mkhize.
FORBES AFRICA made repeated attempts to get the government’s side of the story, but unfortunately these attempts proved fruitless.
It’s the biggest mover of people in South Africa, and across the continent. Millions depend on it for transport to and from work. It could be heading for chaos and conflict. A taxi strike could halt business in South Africa, losing the country billions. If not faced head-on, the industry that moves most African people could be remembered as the industry that caused all the trouble.

Tag: minibus

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‘A Proudly South African Project’: Start Of The Journey For The Country’s First Electric Minibus Taxi

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