Call him a daydreamer or madman but Energy Minister, Fortune Chasi seem determined to make the introduction and widespread use of Electric Vehicles (EV) a reality in Zimbabwe. The Minister has reiterated his plans to come up with preferential policies which promote the use of Electric vehicles. And yesterday he said that’s happening soon.
My colleague wrote a beautiful article when the Minister first talked about EV’s.
When the Minister first talked about the issue 3 weeks ago, many people ridiculed him saying that it doesn’t make sense to introduce EV’s before we haven’t even solved the issue of inadequate electricity in the country. However, Fortune Chasi says that by leveraging solar, through installing charging ports at service stations, the problem of electricity shortages will be solved such that owners of EV’s will easily recharge their cars. Solved!
What’s interesting is nobody seem to be raising this question: how many Zimbabweans can afford Electric Vehicles? This is an important question because the number of Zimbabweans who can afford Electric Vehicles should be enough to justify the investment in the infrastructure. It will be a loss if government or investors invest a million in infrastructure that will only serve just a thousand EV’s, for instance. With prices of EV’s averaging $35 000 and an average Zimbabwean earning $17 000 net salary, how many EV’s will you see in Bulawayo road? With that in perspective, I think widespread use of EV’s in Zimbabwe is still a distant dream unless the government decide to subsidize the purchase of EV’s like what China once did– but I hardly think our cash-strapped government can’t afford this.
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7 comments
Quite interesting. This guy is fulfilling a prophecy. Out of every 10 households 9 will have this car because of affordability.
I’d rather get Paracetamol at a clinic than a charging port
The minister has a good idea that has mutiple benefits but in this case some of his ideas will have to be shelved as the government might just make a loss. Cheap EVs have low range and need to be recharged more often so the charge stations would have to be widely distributed across the country. Charging also takes a while so you’d need multiple ports at each station. It is a good idea that has been implemented by the likes of Tesla to pull in more customers but the challeng is some of these hubs will might lie idle if the initiative does not take off and the government probably doesn’t have enough funding to implement that. This funding can be better utilized by channelling it to initiatives such as more public transport infrastructure and biodiesel production. These better directly address the problem of fuel shortage than asking people fortunate to have a meaningful earning to invest in such assets at a time when they are struggling to procure basic commodities. Yes indeed let them doll tax holidays to EV importers and cease there.
I have done enough research to aptly put this minister in the same box as lunatic daydreamers. Outrightly dangerous. I cant cook with electricity i prepaid for, and he is thinking cars? F”* him and his fantasies, he better give me what he owes first.
The minister has seen the light, like some of us did way back. RSA and USA has a lot of electric cars. We have lots and lots of sun, lots of open space and ZESA typically comes at night. We can charge during the day b solar and ZESA at night. We could also use the day-charged cars to power lights and TV’s before ZESA returns. It’s not about government profitability day 1, no. It’s about something viable right away and that will definitely be the only option anyway in a short while. Some of the vehicles guys are importing up there make one cry. They are very bad, smoking over 10-year olds no longer desirable where they come from. Stopping it and getting electric cars works. Most of the urban folks do not need 200km per day so even with one night charge they are fine. Add the clean environment, less oils etc and we are just fine. Government cannot call these automobiles, so they must allow them to come in duty free and you will see the seaside change in months.
If history is anything to go by, behind the scenes someone has already secured the contract to supply government with the solar stations and charging equipment. Successful, or not, there will be lots of money and opportunity for the connected folks.
This what comes of legalising mbanje. Ideas that have no bearing reality have the potential to be the law of the land… I am not even angry the sheer scale of stupidity in this idea is actually quite impressive.