This Week In The News

NEWS IN SHORT

• Tesla police cars have officially backfired. California police departments replaced their fleets with Teslas in an effort to reach a zero-emissions future, but it turns out these models are presenting
  significant challenges: a back seat too small for more than one passenger, autopilot interferences when trying to pull off the road, and reliance on unsecured charging stations leaving cops vulnerable.
  “Tesla isn’t the right answer in the law enforcement market currently for electric adoption.”- Neil Cervenka, California Police Chief
  
  
• Mikel Mabasa, CEO of Naamsa | The Automotive Business Council, has warned that South Africa risks losing its vehicle manufacturing industrial base, like Australia did, should the transition to new energy vehicles (NEVs) be mismanaged.
  
  
• The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has discovered two fuel depots it believes are partaking in the practice of distributing contaminated diesel in South Africa. As reported by Business Day, the two identified facilities are located in Meyerton, Gauteng, and Louis Trichardt, Limpopo. SARS’s preliminary findings showed that the company’s involvement in the local fuel industry is vast. Its tax returns detailed revenue of around R5.6 billion, VAT turnover of R7 billion, and Pay as You Earn obligations of R1.1 billion between 2019 and 2023.
  
  
• Alarm bells over e-toll revenue jumping from R1.1 billion to R11.8 billion overnight. The Organization Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has sounded the alarm over the National Roads Agency’s (Sanral) sudden change in accounting practices, which has seen e-toll revenue triple seemingly overnight.
  Collectively, Sanral now claims it didn’t make just R1.158 billion from e-tolls between 2021 and 2023, but rather R11.881 billion, an increase of 1,025%. 
  This is the kind of accounting that would normally send auditors scurrying to prevent another Steinhoff debacle. (Watch this space)

• Sasfin plans to close its Business and Commercial Banking (BCB) business in 2025, joining a growing list of financial companies exiting their South African banking operations.
  Sasfin’s decision follows a series of international and local banks that also called it quits.
  UK-based bank HSBC recently announced that it has reached an agreement to transfer its branch business in South Africa to FirstRand Bank. 
  Furthermore, the sixth-largest bank in the world, BNP Paribas, is no longer operating as a bank in South Africa.
  When it comes to local players, the Bidvest Group also plans to dispose of Bidvest Bank and FinGlobal.

• One of South Africa's biggest cities suffered petrol shortages this past weekend, mere days after Transnet warned that this could become a more frequent occurrence in the country over the coming years. The City of Cape Town was hit with fuel shortages this past weekend as a result of an unplanned outage at the Astron Energy refinery in Milnerton, coupled with inclement weather that complicated the delivery of fuels to the city’s port.

• AA has raised concerns for years regarding the behaviour of South Africa’s Blue Light Brigades but says that little has been done to curb their outrageous behaviour. The AA contends that the behaviour displayed by these protection convoys is reckless and puts other motorists at risk.

• The R12 per litre alternative to South Africa’s high petrol prices. LPG fuel prices currently sit at around R12 per litre in Gauteng and R14 per litre along the coast, making it roughly 40% cheaper than petrol, which costs approximately R21 per litre for Petrol 95 in inland areas.

 

This South African car hire company offers EV rentals only.

Drive Electric is a boutique car rental company focused exclusively on electric car rentals in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The company recently added the 40th electric vehicle to its fleet, which exclusively comprised Mini Cooper Electrics when Drive Electric was founded in 2022 but now includes BMW iX3s and Volvo XC40s as well.

“We started out catering mainly for foreigners who had already adopted electric technology in their home countries who wanted an EV for exploring Cape Town,” said Chris O’Connor, co-founder and CEO of Drive Electric, in an interview with TechCentral.

Drive Electric offers short-term rentals on a no-deposit basis, charging clients only the daily rate. Clients receive their vehicles fully charged, with around 350km of range available, depending on the car – any additional charging is free for the customer through Drive Electric’s network partners.

 

Imitation leather.

Often touted as an eco-friendly alternative to animal hide, and sometimes the sole option in EVs marketed as Earth friendly, faux suedes and “vegan” hides are made from chemicals such as polyurethane and polyvinyl chloride. 

Rather than being eco-friendly, these synthetics are made with plastics and other oil-based materials.

Authentic leather used in cars, on the other hand, is a byproduct of the cattle industry, an off-cast remnant that can be sustainably and ethically sourced from a family-run company like Bridge of Weir, the Scottish leather house with roots as far back as the 1700s.

We live in a world where everyone has a cause, and the minority often governs the majority.

 

New Porsche 911 GT3 unveiled.

Both the standard GT3 as well as the Touring will retail from R4,709,000 in South Africa,
which includes a 5-year/100,000km Drive-plan, with local order books to open before the
end of the year.

 

To mark the GT3’s 25th anniversary, Porsche, for the first time, has released the Touring derivative alongside its winged sibling. Both models, whether equipped with the German marque’s seven-speed dual-clutch ‘box (PDK) or six-speed manual cog swapper.

Markets: 

South Africa’s rand strengthened on Thursday as the U.S. dollar weakened. Local platinum group metals (PGM) producers also saw their shares surge amid rising concerns that sanctions on Russia, the top global producer of palladium, could disrupt supply. 

On Friday (25 October), the rand was trading at R17.69 to the dollar, R22.94 to the pound, and R19.14 to the euro. Oil is trading at $74.54 a barrel. [Reuters]

 

The Fuels Industry Association of South Africa is submitting proposals to the finance minister and National Treasury to raise taxes on paraffin and align them with diesel.

This would see taxes on the fuel more than tripling, adding almost R6 to the price. This is to eliminate diesel adulteration, which costs the industry about R3 billion each year.

The association said that diesel adulteration has been a persistent issue for years but has rapidly escalated since 2019.

 

SA to host round of World Rally-Raid championship in 2025

The series, launched at the 2022 Dakar Rally, attracts the world’s leading off-road racers on two and four wheels. The South African Safari will take place from 18-24 May 2025 in North West and Limpopo. It will be the third round of the five-event 2025 W2RC, which kicks off with the 2025 Dakar Rally before heading to Abu Dhabi in late February

“This is an extremely exciting and very proud moment for us as organisers of the SA Rally-Raid Championship (SARRC), the numerous South Africans competing in the Dakar Rally and other international events,” said Archie Rutherford, SARRC CEO.

Race headquarters will be based at Sun City adjacent to the Pilanesberg National Park. The event will feature diverse terrain, with the race route traversing bushveld plateaus, river crossings and savannah plains in the areas of Sun City, Thabazimbi and the agricultural heart of North West.

 

Carzuka has officially been closed down.

Carzuka, a used-car classifieds platform that raked in an impressive R274.8 million in sales in the 2023/24 financial year, has officially been closed down.

Carzuka owner Karooooo explained that the primary motivation for shutting down Carzuka was to preserve Cartrack’s strategic relationships with motor dealerships.

“Certain motor dealerships believed that Carzuka was competing with them, as a result, they chose to stop supporting Cartrack,” said the organization.

“To protect the valuable, long-standing relationships we’ve built with motor dealerships across South Africa, we decided to stop purchasing second-hand vehicles in South Africa.”

A conflict of interest with dealerships may have been the main cause of Carzuka’s demise, but it also ran into financial challenges as the business gained market share.

As showroom successes grew, Carzuka’s balance sheets went deeper into the red as a result of higher operational costs, with the entity reporting a R53 million operating loss in the 2023/24 financial year – its most successful on record in terms of car sales.