This Week In The News

THIS WEEK IN THE NEWS

• Markets: The rand strengthened to a 10-month high on Tuesday, a week before a general election, with analysts citing rising expectations that the outcome of the vote was unlikely to disrupt markets. On Wednesday (22 May), the rand was trading at R18.07 to the dollar, R23.09 to the pound, and R19.61 to the euro. Oil is trading at $82.28 a barrel. [Reuters]
  
  
• AfriForum and the Organization Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) have come forward to offer their legal services to South Africans who are hassled by the National Roads Agency (Sanral) to pay their outstanding e-toll debts. Outa contends that the collection of e-toll debts is a fallacy as there is no way Sanral will be able to force the public to repay their outstanding accounts.
  
  
• Engen and Vivo Energy have announced the completion of their merger, with big expansion plans on the cards for South Africa.Vivo Energy this week completed its purchase of Petronas’ 74% stake in Engen which it held for over 25 years, thus creating a pan-African petrochemical giant.
  
  
• Volkswagen’s Audi and China’s SAIC Motor Corp. will work together on a new vehicle platform as well as three new pure-electric models as the German automaker steps up its electrification push in the world’s most competitive automotive market.

• Naamsa’s most recent quarterly review shows that 3,042 NEVs were sold in South Africa in the first three months of 2024 compared to 1,665 units during the same period last year – an increase of 82.7%.

• Catalytic converters are the most valuable car parts in the domestic market as they are responsible for over 44% of the country’s automotive component exports. In 2023, South Africa exported R29.49 billion worth of catalytic converters to over 23 countries outside its borders.

• The middle-class South African earns a monthly income of just under R21,000. This shows that the middle-class citizen should preferably shop for a vehicle with a window sticker in the region of R209,000.

 

10 cool facts about the Ranger’s production

• Company’s staff who are rotated on a three-shift cycle every 24 hours, allowing Silverton to produce 720 cars per day, equating to one vehicle roughly every two minutes.

• The staff is assisted by nearly 600 robots on the chassis line, with each chassis taking about three hours to build.

• A single Ranger has between 3,000 and 4,000 welding spots, which are protected from corrosion by dipping the body in 12 separate chemical baths prior to painting.

• The painting process is just as thorough, as every model is covered with approximately eight litres of Ford’s 3-Wet High Solid paint.

• The 3-Wet paint is designed to be durable and chip-resistant and is formulated to be less CO2 intensive thanks to reductions in the size of the paint booths, decreasing numbers of paint purging, and smaller ovens to cure the coats.

• After the painting phase, the bakkie is sent through a state-of-the-art paint scanner, which analyzes the body in order to detect imperfections in the coat as small as 0.2mm – less than the point of a needle.

• There are more than 2,700 components that go into each high-rider, and every vehicle undergoes 1,000 quality confirmation checks before it is approved to be sent to a dealership.

• One quality test involves a 20-minute spray with a high-powered washer, which is intended to simulate an intense rainstorm to check for any signs of water leakages.

• After the water test, the pickup is put on the Squeak and Rattle Track, High Speed Track, and Rough Road Track to assess its build quality and handling before release.

• As a final point of quality control, a single Ranger is selected at random from the line every day and subject to an examination using lasers and cameras to check things like the wheel alignment, headlights, and steering alignment.

 

Big blow to used car- industry in South Africa

Information that could help dealers in used cars avoid pre-owned car disasters is being withheld by South African Insurance Association (SAIA)

The South African Insurance Association (SAIA) has confirmed that it will not include Code 2 vehicle salvage information on its VIN-Lookup website.

The VIN-Lookup website was launched on 1 September 2023 and allows potential buyers of pre-owned vehicles to check whether the particular car they are interested in was written off previously.

At present, however, the website only covers vehicles that have been classified as Code 3 (rebuilt), 3A (spare parts only), and 4 (permanently demolished) by one of the SAIA members – which includes the majority, but not all, of South Africa’s top insurers.

SAIA said that following “extensive internal engagements by the relevant SAIA Committee structures”, it decided that also revealing Code 2 information to the general public would “compromise those who buy these vehicles and safely undertake repairs to the manufacturer’s specifications.”

That been said there is an alternative option available to dealers . Please visit https://auto.lightstone.co.za/.

Obtain retail, trade, market and residual values, and understand recent sales performance.

Get insight into the vehicle features at manufacture stage and use the mobile app to instantly return real-time information.

Validate, verify and understand everything there is to know about a vehicle, including any accidents the vehicle may have been in.

Support desk:
087 359 3241 / 087 135 3968
livesupport@lightstoneauto.co.za

 

Please make sure that you have a valid identification document. 

Election officials will accept three forms of official identification to register and vote in the next year’s national and provincial elections: a green bar-coded ID book, a valid Temporary Identity Certificate (TIC) and the new smartcard ID.

Each ballot paper has a unique number and you must make sure that there is a stamp at the back of your ballot papers to verify that they were issued to you on the day of the Election.