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NewTCS | Piet le Roux on Sakeliga's fight with Icasa over BEE
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Episodes 150
TCS | Piet le Roux on Sakeliga's fight with Icasa over BEE
Business group Sakeliga is taking Icasa to court over the 30% ownership rule for telecoms licensees, and its CEO, Piet le Roux, says the regulator has "clearly misunderstood" the law. In this episode of the …
Show notes
Business group Sakeliga is taking Icasa to court over the 30% ownership rule for telecoms licensees, and its CEO, Piet le Roux, says the regulator has "clearly misunderstood" the law.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Le Roux tells Duncan McLeod why Sakeliga has asked the high court in Pretoria to set aside Icasa's decision that it cannot give full effect to communications minister Solly Malatsi's policy direction on equity-equivalent investment programmes (EEIPs) without a change in the law. EEIPs would let multinationals such as Starlink invest in skills and local suppliers instead of selling 30% of their South African operations to historically disadvantaged groups.
Le Roux explains why Sakeliga reads the words "or such other conditions" in the Electronic Communications Act as giving Icasa a choice. He also explains why the case forces the regulator to "play their hand", and why Sakeliga hasn't spoken to Malatsi, even though its case leans heavily on his policy direction.
He sets out Sakeliga's broader aim, calling B-BBEE "a very harmful policy programme". He describes EEIPs, which would keep an empowerment requirement in place, as "a tax on being not black enough".
He says BEE ownership deals that operators such as Vodacom, MTN and Telkom made "under a form of duress" should be revisable, case by case. And he responds to online claims that Elon Musk is bankrolling the case: "I'd be very happy to take any contribution from him. But no, we are funded by local people." TechCentralW&W | AA’s Bobby Ramagwede on a car industry running out of road
AA CEO Bobby Ramagwede tells Watts & Wheels that South Africa’s car manufacturing industry could be decimated within five years. Is South Africa’s car manufacturing industry running out of road? Automobile …
Show notes
AA CEO Bobby Ramagwede tells Watts & Wheels that South Africa’s car manufacturing industry could be decimated within five years.
Is South Africa’s car manufacturing industry running out of road? Automobile Association (AA) CEO Bobby Ramagwede thinks it might be.
In this episode of Watts & Wheels, he tells William Kelly that unless the country settles on a clear policy direction, local vehicle manufacturing could be decimated within five years. And he isn’t shy about naming the car makers he’s worried about.
Ramagwede, who took over at the AA in October 2024 after careers in banking, healthcare and insurance, sees the 96-year-old association’s real job as “playing referee” in a motoring system that has gone without oversight for years. That means challenging government, testing car makers’ claims – including putting vehicles on a weighbridge – and holding motorists to account when they ignore the rules they expect everyone else to follow.
He also makes the case for scrapping the Road Accident Fund in favour of compulsory third-party insurance, argues that motorists should have to prove their cars are roadworthy before renewing their licence discs each year, and says he would bring back local crash testing if the AA could afford it.
On the motor industry, Ramagwede warns of a “hodgepodge of policy”, holds up Thailand as a cautionary tale of what happens when imports flood a market, and challenges car makers to stop staying quiet: “This is an all-or-nothing game.”
Read TechCentral’s report on the interview, including responses from Volkswagen, BMW, Toyota, Ford and industry body Naamsa.
Don’t miss the discussion. TechCentralTCS | Pick n Pay fights back in online grocery wars
Pick n Pay will keep Smart Shopper Pro, its new paid loyalty tier, at its R99/month launch price "for a very extended period", says Vince Viviers, executive: innovation and digital transformation at the …
Show notes
Pick n Pay will keep Smart Shopper Pro, its new paid loyalty tier, at its R99/month launch price "for a very extended period", says Vince Viviers, executive: innovation and digital transformation at the retailer. If the price does change, customers will be told well in advance, "so that there are no sneaky surprises".
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Viviers tells Duncan McLeod how Pro, launched last month at the same price as Shoprite's Xtra Savings Plus, is meant to pay its way. A customer who orders weekly on asap! would pay about R148 a month in delivery fees alone, he says.
For Pick n Pay, the prize is loyalty. "Once you commit to paying monthly to be part of a specific programme, then your focus is: how do I unlock the most value here?" Members spend more and shop more often, Viviers says, much of it at competitors' expense.
With rival apps now much alike, he argues, shoppers will choose on product. Fresh food, the biggest part of the basket and the reason people shop every week, is where Pick n Pay thinks it can win. It is also where Amazon, whose Prime service costs R59 a month, has struggled, though Viviers counts it as a competitor already.
He also explains why Pick n Pay is considering dark stores in busy metros, and how Takealot's Mr D app has brought it new customers. Penny, its AI shopping assistant, has lifted basket sizes and shopping frequency, he says, but he gives no figures. Nor does Pick n Pay disclose the size of its online business, whose sales grew 35.4% in the six months to 30 August.
Next is personalisation. Viviers says Pick n Pay is moving to "a much more one-to-one model", with new features due in asap! and Smart Shopper over the next six to 12 months. TechCentralTCS | Nomvuyiso Batyi on the battle over Sim registration
South Africa’s mobile operators want tougher Sim registration, but not on the terms communications regulator Icasa has proposed. Draft amendments to Icasa’s numbering plan regulations, published for comment …
Show notes
South Africa’s mobile operators want tougher Sim registration, but not on the terms communications regulator Icasa has proposed.
Draft amendments to Icasa’s numbering plan regulations, published for comment last month, would require a fingerprint or face check against home affairs records for every new Sim, reactivation and Sim swap. Subscribers would be capped at five numbers per operator, and operators would have two years to re-verify existing customers.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Nomvuyiso Batyi, CEO of the Association of Comms & Technology (ACT), tells Duncan McLeod why the industry body won’t support the rules as drafted. ACT, which represents Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, Rain and Liquid Intelligent Technologies, has spent two years working with the justice department on amendments to Rica, the Sim registration law, and its members agreed an industry framework in June.
Batyi says Icasa officials sat in meetings where that work was presented, so the draft came as a surprise. The industry framework would allow 20 Sims per person per network rather than five. It also targets informal dealers who sell Sims pre-registered in their own names.
Batyi explains why prepaid customers are the hard part – some traders in rural areas still register Sims over 2G connections – and what it will cost to query the home affairs database. She warns that forcing every subscriber to re-verify risks repeating the failures of digital migration, and describes the fraud driving the debate, from WhatsApp scams and stolen phones to one-time Pin fraud.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentralTCS+ | Old Mutual's Celiwe Ross on leading people through AI
AI is the defining technology of our era. At one extreme, it fuels fears of job losses, robot wars and computers ruling over human beings. At the other, it holds out hope: curing diseases such as cancer …
Show notes
AI is the defining technology of our era. At one extreme, it fuels fears of job losses, robot wars and computers ruling over human beings. At the other, it holds out hope: curing diseases such as cancer, bolstering global food security and even freeing people from the need to work.
Old Mutual was the headline sponsor of this year's Singularity Summit South Africa, held on 21-22 October at the Sandton Convention Centre, where these questions took centre stage.
In this episode of TCS+, Celiwe Ross, group chief human capital and corporate affairs officer at Old Mutual, looks back at the summit. She discusses how companies, their managers and employees should approach integrating the technology as AI becomes more deeply embedded in the workplace.
In the interview, Ross discusses:
- Why a 181-year-old insurer sponsors a future-focused event like the Singularity Summit, and how Old Mutual's founding story shapes its approach to disruption;
- How AI is changing the role of the chief human resources officer, from workforce planning to the design of work, reskilling and organisational change;
- Why leaders should look at AI through three lenses: the work, the worker and, only later, the workforce;
- How AI could eventually change a company's operating model, and why that is still a distant reality, especially in South Africa;
- Why experimentation is essential to building an AI strategy;
- The usage trap: why some organisations have high adoption rates that do not translate into productivity gains or a return on investment;
- Emerging global trends in the use of AI agents, and what South Africa can learn from them;
- How Old Mutual is approaching AI training;
- Why judgment, empathy and vulnerability are becoming more important leadership skills, and how organisations can help people build them; and
- Where South Africa and Africa stand on AI adoption.
Ross also argues that, done properly, AI should create more opportunities and career paths, not fewer, and that leaders should approach the AI debate in terms of capacity rather than headcount.
Don't miss the discussion.
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TCS+ episodes are sponsored TechCentralTCS+ | How the Apple ecosystem drives productivity for SMEs
Small and medium enterprises are under constant pressure to stay nimble and competitive in a tough economic climate, and technology that runs smoothly is a big part of how they manage it. In this second episode …
Show notes
Small and medium enterprises are under constant pressure to stay nimble and competitive in a tough economic climate, and technology that runs smoothly is a big part of how they manage it.
In this second episode of the Mac for SME series, brought to you by iStore Business, Sudesh Pillay, executive head of iStore Business South Africa, and Kevin McLennan, founder and CEO of PR and marketing firm The Prophecy Group, discuss the value of the Apple ecosystem as a productivity driver for small businesses.
Pillay and McLennan delve into:
● Why seamless IT experience is important for SMEs where resource maximisation is key to success;
● How quickly technology is changing, and whether investing in the Apple ecosystem can futureproof hardware against advances in AI;
● The support available to SMEs when upgrades become unavoidable;
● Whether moving employees to a new operating system is as daunting as it sounds;
● How important native data protection is for small businesses that struggle with security and compliance; and
● Which software subscriptions, beyond AI tools, small businesses can avoid paying for.
Don’t miss the discussion.
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TCS+ episodes are sponsored TechCentralTCS+ | Vox on AI, data rules and omnichannel communication for SMEs
Phone calls, e-mails and in-person conversations were once the only ways businesses could talk to their customers. Social media changed that. Marketing, customer acquisition, sales and support now happen across …
Show notes
Phone calls, e-mails and in-person conversations were once the only ways businesses could talk to their customers. Social media changed that. Marketing, customer acquisition, sales and support now happen across a growing number of channels. That brings clear benefits, but it can also leave businesses with a fragmented communication ecosystem that hurts the customer experience.
In this episode of TCS+, Natalie van der Merwe, head of telephony at Vox, unpacks why an omnichannel approach matters, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Topics covered in the discussion include:
* What "omnichannel" means and why businesses need it now
* The benefits for SMEs and their customers
* How customer expectations of business communication have changed
* Why continuity across channels matters to customers
* What a poor or disconnected experience can cost in loyalty and reputation
* How a fragmented communication ecosystem disrupts a business internally
* Whether SMEs are right to see omnichannel as complex
* The role of AI in business communications
* Why customers should be involved in designing new channels
* The regulatory considerations businesses should keep in mind about the kinds of data exchanged on different platforms
Van der Merwe also explains how to make the business case for investing in omnichannel, and advises SMEs on how to start improving their communication ecosystems.
TCS+ episodes are sponsored TechCentralTCS | The Cape Town firm quietly connecting Eskom, Pep and 6 000 ATMs
Réan van Niekerk Metacom has spent 25 years designing its own routers and running private networks for some of Africa's biggest retailers, without a cent of venture capital. In this episode of the TechCentral …
Show notes
Réan van Niekerk
Metacom has spent 25 years designing its own routers and running private networks for some of Africa's biggest retailers, without a cent of venture capital.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, founder Réan van Niekerk tells Fanie van Rooyen how the Cape Town company came to connect more than 6 000 ATMs, every Pep store in Africa and, by his account, well over half the communications Eskom uses to monitor and control electricity distribution.
He explains why Metacom designs its hardware in-house instead of buying white-label Asian routers, and why one box per store works better than equipment from four suppliers. He also says satellite services such as Starlink would be a "wonderful supplier", not a threat.
Van Niekerk also discusses enterprise technology spending in 2026, the AI-driven memory shortages that now force Metacom to order some components a year ahead, the company's cautious approach to AI, which keeps humans on its support lines, and why Africa is not one market. TechCentralTCS+ | Boards are underestimating the cost of a cyberattack, says Arctic Wolf
In this episode of TCS+, brought to you by Arctic Wolf, Jason Oehley, the company's country sales manager, and Andre Den Hond, senior systems engineer, talk about why South Africa is bearing the brunt of …
Show notes
In this episode of TCS+, brought to you by Arctic Wolf, Jason Oehley, the company's country sales manager, and Andre Den Hond, senior systems engineer, talk about why South Africa is bearing the brunt of ransomware in Africa and what businesses can do about it.
The pair unpack an Interpol report that found 92% of ransomware detections on the continent are in South Africa. Oehley explains that the country's high connectivity, big financial services sector and large mid-market are part of the reason, along with a tactical rather than proactive approach to security.
Den Hond explains how agentic AI systems can automate the attack chain, adapt when an exploit fails and never tire, putting small and medium-sized enterprises squarely in the crosshairs.
Watch the video
The pair also explain why the time between a vulnerability being identified and exploited has collapsed, why attackers are increasingly stealing data rather than encrypting it and why cyber insurance often doesn't cover the costs that hurt most.
Other points discussed include:
Why SMEs that supply bigger companies are a back door for attackers, including the recent breach of a group of South African insurers;
The hidden costs of a breach, including downtime averaging 22 days, lost income, idle payroll and reputational damage;
A customer that put off a security purchase because of the cost and was hit months later for much more;
How to measure the financial impact of cyber risk, and why the return-on-investment argument matters at board level;
Proactive versus reactive security, and why there is no silver bullet;
Whether South Africa's regulators are keeping up, and the prospect of directors' liability; and
Why building a 24/7 security operations centre in-house rarely makes financial sense
Don't miss this practical conversation about turning cyber risk into terms that decision-makers understand. TechCentralTCS | Drones, AI and the future of warfare, with Milkor's Daniel du Plessis
Milkor’s advanced 380 drone is flying for a customer in the Middle East, but South Africa’s own defence force has yet to buy one. In this episode of TCS, Milkor vice-president for Africa Daniel du Plessis talks …
Show notes
Milkor’s advanced 380 drone is flying for a customer in the Middle East, but South Africa’s own defence force has yet to buy one. In this episode of TCS, Milkor vice-president for Africa Daniel du Plessis talks to deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen about why, and about where drones, AI and autonomy are taking modern warfare.
Fresh from the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) expo at Air Force Base Waterkloof, Du Plessis explains what buyers were asking about most: drones of all sizes, data fusion and artificial intelligence. He sets out where a 1.5-tonne surveillance aircraft that can fly for more than 30 hours fits in a world of cheap, expendable drones like those used in Ukraine.
He also tackles the harder questions. Who decides who Milkor can sell to, and how do South Africa’s arms export controls work? Where does a human stay in control as drones carry guided missiles and become more autonomous? Are fears about “killer robots” overblown? And how does the 380 keep flying when GPS signals are jammed or spoofed?
Closer to home, Du Plessis says the SANDF is severely underfunded and that money, not interest, is what stands between the 380 and South Africa’s defence force and Border Management Authority. He warns that South Africa and the rest of the continent are not ready for cheap attack drones, but says the local defence industry has the capability to respond if government acts now.
The conversation also covers Milkor’s larger 780, its new agreement with European missile maker MBDA and how much of the 380 is built in Cape Town. TechCentralTCS | Frogfoot sees bigger fibre deals coming
Frogfoot plans to keep buying smaller fibre network operators in South Africa’s suburbs as the market consolidates, but CEO Shane Chorley stopped short of ruling out a sale of the business. “I’d be ignorant to …
Show notes
Frogfoot plans to keep buying smaller fibre network operators in South Africa’s suburbs as the market consolidates, but CEO Shane Chorley stopped short of ruling out a sale of the business.
“I’d be ignorant to say that we would ignore any offer,” Chorley said on the latest episode of the TechCentral Show – watch or listen below. “I would hope to say that we will be the acquirer rather than being sold.”
Frogfoot has already bought a couple of small suburban operators and wants to acquire “as many of those smaller operators as possible”, he told show host Duncan McLeod. He expects somewhat larger networks, of more than 30 000 homes, to come up for sale in the next few years, followed in time by “a much bigger consolidation of one or two of the bigger ones”.
The mooted merger of Octotel and MetroFibre had been “going on for a while”, Chorley said, and he expected consolidation among suburban operators to continue.
Abraham van der Merwe, who leads Frogfoot, Vox and Hypa, said consolidation was inevitable because “infrastructure requires scale”. But he said Frogfoot was unlikely to be consolidated any time soon because its “long-term and patient” investors, among them the founders, intend to own the business for a very long time.
The two spoke after a DNI-led consortium invested in the businesses in a deal valuing them at R14.4-billion. Most of the money will go into townships, where Van der Merwe said fewer than two million of 12 million to 15 million homes have fibre. Frogfoot wants to lift its build rate from about 80 000 connections a year to 360 000.
That untapped market is also why Van der Merwe is not worried about operators overbuilding each other. Overbuilding splits market share and wrecks the economics, he said, and there is little reason to do it when so many homes have no fibre at all. It took about a decade to connect the 4.5 million homes in the suburbs; the township market is three times that size. TechCentralMeet the CIO | Vodacom’s Mohamed Sami on the agentic future
Mohamed Sami, group chief information officer at Vodacom, says autonomous AI agents that resolve customer problems without handing them to a human are the next big shift in customer experience – and that it is …
Show notes
Mohamed Sami, group chief information officer at Vodacom, says autonomous AI agents that resolve customer problems without handing them to a human are the next big shift in customer experience – and that it is closer than many think.
Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Sami said Vodacom’s chatbots and voice bots already handle a considerable share of customer calls, while AI tools help its human agents find information without jumping between systems.
“When I say it is the next big thing, it is not something that is happening in years. It’s something that is happening very soon,” he said. How autonomous those agents become, he added, depends on how much intelligence and orchestration sits behind them.
Watch the episode
Sami also discusses:
• Where the line falls between his role and that of the group CTO as network and IT converge;
• Why Vodacom is using small language models to help large models handle isiZulu, Swahili, Amharic and Egypt’s Arabic dialects;
• How a standard set of AI agents across the software development life cycle is lifting developer productivity, and why it hasn’t cost software engineers their jobs;
• How Vodacom is trying to stop AI token bills running away, including orchestrators that route work between expensive, cheap and self-hosted models;
• Why he told the board that cybersecurity is one of the company’s biggest risks, and the programme to rebuild core platforms designed before the generative AI era; and
• What it takes to be a modern CIO, and his advice for a graduate who wants his job in 20 years.
Don’t miss a great discussion on technology in telecoms. TechCentralTCS | Norrsken22’s Lexi Novitske on how China is winning African tech
Chinese companies have built their position in African technology one layer at a time – first phones and telecoms equipment, then fintech and now the AI models that local start-ups build on. American private …
Show notes
Chinese companies have built their position in African technology one layer at a time – first phones and telecoms equipment, then fintech and now the AI models that local start-ups build on. American private capital, meanwhile, is pulling back. Lexi Novitske, general partner at Norrsken22, thinks US investors will regret it.
Novitske moved to Nigeria in 2012 and has invested from Lagos ever since. Norrsken22, a pan-African growth fund backed by Nordic tech founders including those behind Klarna, Skype and Minecraft, closed its debut fund at US$205-million in 2023. It is now about halfway through deploying that capital, with no exits yet.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, she expands on the argument TechCentral reported last week: that African start-ups are increasingly building on Chinese AI models such as Alibaba’s Qwen because they are cheaper and more available, and that the US risks losing both a young, digital-first market and access to its data.
In the interview, with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Novitske also discusses:
• How Nigeria’s start-up scene has changed since she began as an angel investor;
• Why unpredictable regulation and a shortage of top talent are bigger obstacles for Nigerian founders than power cuts;
• How Chinese-backed OPay and PalmPay won Nigerian fintech by absorbing years of losses, and why that now makes regulators uneasy;
• Why Silicon Valley’s AI boom has drawn venture capital away from Africa, and when she expects it to return;
• Why Egypt and South Africa offer the best opportunities right now, with Nigeria likely to follow; and
• What Optasia’s oversubscribed JSE listing means for Johannesburg, why the biggest African fintechs are looking to New York, London and Hong Kong instead, and why one or two winners can return an entire fund.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentralTCS | Dominic White and Adam Ely on AI agents going rogue
AI agents are no longer a thought experiment for security teams. They are breaking out of test environments, hacking real companies and, according to one of our guests, already going rogue inside large …
Show notes
AI agents are no longer a thought experiment for security teams. They are breaking out of test environments, hacking real companies and, according to one of our guests, already going rogue inside large businesses.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen talks to Dominic White, MD for South Africa at Orange Cyberdefense, and Adam Ely, GM of AI security at Check Point, about the escalating threat AI poses to cybersecurity.
They unpack the incident in which OpenAI’s own agents escaped a test environment and broke into Hugging Face’s systems. White argues the initial breach was far from sophisticated and questions whether OpenAI understands its duty of care. Ely explains why the incident shows that even highly skilled, well-resourced teams can’t rule out agents going rogue.
They also take on the widely reported story that three Hacktron researchers used Anthropic’s Claude to take over OpenAI employees’ accounts – a story White calls “deliberately misleading”.
Also discussed:
• A Check Point customer running 50 000 AI agents – and what happens when they drift
• Why sandboxing and human oversight are struggling to keep up
• Why even security professionals end up switching off their own agents’ safeguards
• The case for monitoring agents from the inside, in real time
• Whether AI development can – or should – slow down
• Who is accountable when an agent breaks the rules
• The Manhattan Project comparison both guests reach for
• What they expect to see in the next 12 months
Whether you run a security team, build with AI or simply want to understand where the technology is heading, this is a frank conversation with two practitioners who see the threat from all sides. TechCentralTCS | Octotel’s Trevor van Zyl on the fibre merger question
Octotel CEO Trevor van Zyl joins the TechCentral Show to talk about where South Africa’s fibre market goes next – including a potential merger with MetroFibre Networx. Van Zyl told TechCentral that Octotel and …
Show notes
Octotel CEO Trevor van Zyl joins the TechCentral Show to talk about where South Africa’s fibre market goes next – including a potential merger with MetroFibre Networx. Van Zyl told TechCentral that Octotel and MetroFibre Networx are assessing a combination that would create the country’s third-largest fibre network operator, with both companies sitting under a common investor in an AIIM-led consortium.
In the interview, he sets out Octotel’s position: just under 400 000 homes passed across the Cape Town metropole, the West Coast and the Garden Route; a balance sheet he says lets the company deploy capital when and where it chooses; and a Western Cape footprint he argues overlaps very little with MetroFibre’s.
He discusses the next phase of roll-out, too. As networks push into lower-LSM areas, “the commercials and the economics start changing”, he says, and affordability now reaches well into the middle class.
He rejects the idea that fixed-wireless access can substitute for fibre in dense settlements – wireless has improved dramatically, he says, “but when you look at the actual demand case and what is required in those environments, it absolutely has to be fibre”. The more important question, in his view, is how to distribute it economically once you get there.
On Openserve’s move into the ISP business, Van Zyl is relaxed. He says he understands why Openserve did it, but that Octotel will not follow: “We certainly don’t want to become an ISP. We’re not good at being an ISP.”
He also expects consolidation among ISPs as networks saturate, sees low-Earth orbit satellite as complementary to fibre rather than a threat to it, and will not rule Octotel out of any future move by MTN on fibre network assets.
Don’t miss the discussion. TechCentralMeet the CIO | Chris Shortt on what a supermarket becomes
Chris Shortt, chief technology officer at Shoprite Group, says the work of the next five years is meeting the customer at their point of need, wherever that is – and that this does not mean the end of the …
Show notes
Chris Shortt, chief technology officer at Shoprite Group, says the work of the next five years is meeting the customer at their point of need, wherever that is – and that this does not mean the end of the store.
Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Shortt said Africa’s largest retailer is building towards a unified experience regardless of how a customer reaches it: ordering by voice from a home assistant, or walking in to choose their own tomatoes and their own fillet.
“How do we blend that for you so that it’s actually how you want to do things, as opposed to how we might want you to do things,” he said. The group’s store footprint, he added, is as alive and active as it has always been, and its point of presence in communities still makes a difference to customers.
Delivering on that promise rests on a real-time inventory layer, which is why modernising Shoprite’s core SAP retail platform is the largest technology project the group has running.
Shortt also discusses:
• How the CIO/CTO’s job has changed, with the infrastructure now simply expected to work and the role shifting towards helping business counterparts understand the art of the possible;
• Why about 12 000 Shoprite employees are using generative AI, and how the gateway the group built picks the least expensive model that can handle a request;
• Why his product teams now pair one or two people with several agents, and what he put to the group’s chief people officer about recruits who arrive with agents of their own;
• Why he will not comment on other retailers’ ERP failures, and the “day in the life of” testing he relies on instead;
• What he tells the audit and risk committee when they ask what keeps him up at night; and
• The book that shaped his thinking, and the productivity habit he will not work without.
Don’t miss a great discussion on the future of retail. TechCentralWatts & Wheels | Rubicon’s EV charging network is profitable – and growing fast
The company runs 125 chargers and wants a thousand within five years, focused on urban hubs. -- Rubicon’s public charging network is profitable and grew usage markedly in two months as fuel prices spiked, the …
Show notes
The company runs 125 chargers and wants a thousand within five years, focused on urban hubs.
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Rubicon’s public charging network is profitable and grew usage markedly in two months as fuel prices spiked, the company’s e-mobility head has told TechCentral’s Watts & Wheels.
Hilton Musk said usage climbed roughly 30% in a single month, then another 30% the month after. “We thought it was a fluke,” he said. “But it carried on.” Growth started levelling off in June, largely because importers have sold through their stock of affordable EVs.
Rubicon, founded in Port Elizabeth in 1985 as an electrical supplier to the likes of Volkswagen, now runs 125 chargers and wants a thousand within five years – about eight times its current footprint.
The network turned profitable roughly a year ago, which Musk put down to concentrating on dense urban markets: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Bloemfontein. Around 90% of driving happens inside those hubs, he said, with the other 10% between them.
The company has chargers on the N3 and N4 and opened the Durban-Cape Town route in 2024. The N1 remains GridCars territory.
Musk expects public charging to take a larger share in South Africa than the 80/20 home-to-public split seen in mature markets – closer to 70/30 – because many EV owners live in complexes and estates with no charging.
At R7/kWh, Rubicon’s DC charging works out to roughly R1/km, against about 50c/km on municipal power at home. Both undercut petrol comfortably.
He is sticking with 2028 as the year battery-electric vehicles reach 5% of new passenger sales. Count hybrids and plug-ins, he said, and the market is nearly there already.
Don’t miss the discussion. TechCentralWatts & Wheels | Why electric trucks are beating electric cars to South Africa
South Africa has still not crossed 1% of new vehicle sales going to electric vehicles, well short of the 5% mark at which adoption typically accelerates, The Electric Mission executive director Hiten Parmar …
Show notes
South Africa has still not crossed 1% of new vehicle sales going to electric vehicles, well short of the 5% mark at which adoption typically accelerates, The Electric Mission executive director Hiten Parmar told TechCentral’s Watts & Wheels with Wills.
Parmar, who heads the non-profit advocacy body and co-founded the Southern African Electric Mobility Association, said the past three years have changed what is available locally. Battery-electric models are now selling below R400 000 and range has improved sharply. But 64% of cars sold in South Africa go for under R400 000, and import duties plus the ad valorem levy keep most electric models above that line.
The commercial side is moving faster. Light-, medium-, heavy- and ultra-heavy-duty electric trucks are now available in South Africa rather than being promised in presentations, Parmar said, with fleets reporting total cost of ownership savings of up to 25%. The economics improve the further a vehicle travels, which makes high-mileage fleets the first adopters rather than the last.
He pointed to the 12.5GW of private solar installed in South Africa by the end of 2025, on figures from the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association, as an underused base for charging. Fleets can charge from their own generation during the day and fall back to the grid overnight.
On manufacturing, Parmar said six of the seven passenger and light commercial vehicle manufacturers in South Africa now have batteries entering local production, and four have secured hybrid investments. What is missing is a tier-one battery cell supplier and an incentive framework for zero-emission vehicles to sit alongside the one government has run for local vehicle assembly since 1995.
With European export markets tightening towards 2035, he said, the window for that decision is closing.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentralWinstone Jordaan on building a national EV charging network
Winstone Jordaan was building charging infrastructure before South Africa had electric cars to plug into it. GridCars began developing its backend platform in 2010. The first EVs arrived in 2013. In this …
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Winstone Jordaan was building charging infrastructure before South Africa had electric cars to plug into it. GridCars began developing its backend platform in 2010. The first EVs arrived in 2013.
In this episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, the GridCars founder tells William Kelly why the hardware was never the hard part. Working out where to put a charger and how much power to feed it is straightforward. Building the billing and roaming systems behind it is not.
That is also the answer to a question drivers keep asking: why can’t you just tap a card? Because the network needs to know who you are. If a charger is faulty, or the power is about to go off, Jordaan wants to be able to call you.
He is candid in the interview about the economics of building a national EV charging network. A charge point operator needs around a thousand chargers to be profitable, by calculation. South Africa has roughly 650 in total. A 24-hour call centre alone takes seven people. Long term, he expects 500 000 chargers for a car parc of 11 million vehicles.
Jordaan also thinks adoption is about to accelerate sharply, and that the disruption will reach well beyond motoring. He recently told one industry gathering that a third of the room would be out of business within five years.
On charging infrastructure as a reason not to buy an EV, he is clear about one thing: there are enough chargers. Thinking otherwise, he says, is just being poorly informed.
Don’t miss the discussion. TechCentralWatts & Wheels S1E8: ‘Tesla lands in Africa, just not here’
Episode 8 of Watts & Wheels – TechCentral’s electric motoring show – opens with William Kelly on his soapbox, clipboard in hand, and a simple demand: keep left, pass right. Too many South African drivers, he …
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Episode 8 of Watts & Wheels – TechCentral’s electric motoring show – opens with William Kelly on his soapbox, clipboard in hand, and a simple demand: keep left, pass right.
Too many South African drivers, he argues, treat the left indicator as an invitation to be overtaken rather than a signal of intent, and lane discipline would save the country time, fuel and a great deal of frustration, he opines.
Duncan McLeod wonders where enforcement of that sort ends – cameras and artificial intelligence deciding when you should pull over? – which leads neatly into the episode’s main interview.
In episode 8, William and Duncan get stuck into:
• An interview with Dillan Fernando, CEO of Tracker, on what a vehicle-tracking business becomes when cars generate far more data than a stolen-vehicle recovery unit ever needed – and what happens once AI is pointed at it.
• The grid maths – William sets a total Eskom grid figure of roughly 47GW against a national fleet of about 13 million vehicles, of which only some 10 000 can be plugged in at all. His conclusion: EV charging is nowhere near being an Eskom problem, and on current trajectories most of us will not live to see the day it is.
• EV education in South Africa – how much do buyers actually understand about what they are being sold, and whose job is it to tell them?
• Volvo gets Gemini – Google’s assistant has begun rolling out to Volvo cars, starting in the US and reaching models going back to 2020. Fixed voice commands give way to something closer to conversation: brainstorming a holiday, finding a decent coffee stop on the route, summarising an incoming text and dictating a reply in another language, or simply asking for something calming on the stereo.
• Tesla lands in Africa – in Casablanca – Morocco, not South Africa, is where Tesla has put its African base, with a corporate presence in Casablanca and a Supercharger network built out since 2021 across Casablanca, Tangier, Rabat, Fez, Marrakesh and Agadir. Its cars still cannot be bought through official channels here. Is Africa a sleeping EV giant? The hosts are unconvinced.
• Trade deals and battery minerals – India signs a motor industry trade deal with the EU while, at home, Itac proposes bringing EV battery minerals into the list of qualifying standard materials under APDP2, at a standard value added rate of 50% against the usual 25%, provided they originate in Sacu or the SADC region. William’s question: is anyone actually going to build the batteries?
• Mad Chinese cars – BYD’s Tang and the Denza B8, plus XPeng’s GX, the brand’s first three-row luxury SUV.
• A moment of silence – too soon, Honda? The hosts mark the company’s retreat from its electric vehicle strategy.
Also in the mix is the new metal heading for South African showrooms. The Jaecoo J5 and the iCaur are on the way, along with the BYD Atto 2 DM-i, a plug-in hybrid whose entry-level version carries a 7.8kWh Blade battery – a remarkably small pack for a car you are expected to plug in. It arrives loaded with equipment, which prompts a broader observation: Chinese brands have spoiled South African buyers so quickly that the goalposts have already moved.
To contrast all that smoothness with something built for a purpose, there is the new Thula – the locally engineered electric game viewer that featured in episode 5 – back for another look.
The episode closes with Hot or Not, where the Toyota FJ, the BYD Atto 2 DM-i, the iCaur and the Thula game viewer all go under the hammer.
Watch S1E8 of Watts & Wheels now. Don’t forget to subscribe, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues. TechCentralTCS | Herotel CEO Van Zyl Botha on beating Starlink to South Africa
Amazon’s Leo satellite constellation is coming to South Africa in 2027 through Herotel. TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen speaks to Herotel CEO Van Zyl Botha about Evry, the brand that will sell Amazon …
Show notes
Amazon’s Leo satellite constellation is coming to South Africa in 2027 through Herotel. TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen speaks to Herotel CEO Van Zyl Botha about Evry, the brand that will sell Amazon Leo to South African homes, and about how a company with no local licence walked into a market that has kept Starlink out for years.
Botha explains why low-Earth orbit satellite technology changes the equation for anyone living beyond the reach of fibre and fixed-wireless services.
He addresses the awkward questions directly:
• How does Amazon get in without giving up 30%?
• Does a wholesale-retail split leave anything behind in the country?
• Would he sign the same deal with Starlink tomorrow?
• What about the regulatory asymmetry?
Also covered: what Evry is likely to cost; why studies on the market’s size range from 480 000 to 2.4 million potential customers; why Herotel is taking registrations for a service that has not launched commercially anywhere; whether Evry will cannibalise Herotel’s own fibre and wireless base; what Vodacom’s stake in Maziv means for Herotel’s independence; and why LEO satellites are viable now when the idea is 40 years old.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentralMeet the CIO | Derek Wilcocks on how AI personalised Vitality
Discovery group CIO Derek Wilcocks on personalised Vitality, the limits of AI coding and why growth beats cost-cutting. Derek Wilcocks, group CIO at Discovery, says AI has finally given the group the ability to …
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Discovery group CIO Derek Wilcocks on personalised Vitality, the limits of AI coding and why growth beats cost-cutting.
Derek Wilcocks, group CIO at Discovery, says AI has finally given the group the ability to do something it has wanted to do since Vitality launched more than 25 years ago: personalise it.
Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Wilcocks said Personal Health Pathways is built on AI models trained on member data collected since 2000, and used only with a member’s consent. For most of Vitality’s history, the targets were identical for everyone. The programme can now suggest a walk, a glucose test or a cancer screening rather than a run.
Wilcocks spent 23 years at Dimension Data, now NTT Data, where he ran Internet Solutions, served as group CIO and led the Middle East and Africa business as CEO. He was the 12th person to join Internet Solutions and founded a subsidiary that sold the first firewalls into South Africa’s banks. He joined Discovery in 2018.
In the discussion, he is candid about the limits of AI in software development. Discovery is measuring efficiency gains of roughly 20-25% in some areas from AI coding tools, but developers in large corporates were spending only a quarter to a third of their time writing code to begin with. Senior developers use all the major agentic coding frameworks, though the group has spent heavily on guardrails constraining what those tools are allowed to do.
Wilcocks also discusses:
• Why Discovery’s health and life businesses buy no traditional enterprise software, developing everything from scratch;
• Why he thinks Elon Musk is right about the direction but wrong about the timing on the end of source code, and the three problems standing in the way – explainability, efficiency and maintainability;
• Why the decade in which knowing how to code was enough to walk into a job has come to an end;
• How a federated model with around 14 CIOs across the group is held together by mandatory central security, privacy and ethics functions – and what happened when Discovery’s data scientists were asked to simplify the AI rules written for them;
• Why he sees AI at Discovery as primarily a growth story rather than a cost-cutting one, with staff retrained and redeployed rather than cut; and
• His route into computers, from a Commodore Vic-20 with 4KB of memory to the father who cured him of wanting to be an electrical engineer.
Don’t miss any of the other great interviews on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO. TechCentralTCS | Money just became native to the internet - Steven Boykey Sidley
Steven Boykey Sidley has been a chief technology officer at a Fortune 500 company, a private equity investor, a videogame designer, a jazz musician and, for the past four years, a professor of practice at the …
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Steven Boykey Sidley has been a chief technology officer at a Fortune 500 company, a private equity investor, a videogame designer, a jazz musician and, for the past four years, a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg. He is a partner at Bridge Capital, heading its futures advisory, and the author of eight books – two of them on bitcoin and crypto – with another due in October.
TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen spoke to him about the moment money finally became native to the internet, why the South African Reserve Bank appears to be walking in the opposite direction, and what AI is quietly doing to science and schooling while everyone argues about chatbots. TechCentralTCS+ | How AI is turning hardware into a subscription service
For most of business history, buying technology meant owning it. Capital was set aside, servers and laptops were hauled into the building alongside the software licences, and the business then sweated those …
Show notes
For most of business history, buying technology meant owning it. Capital was set aside, servers and laptops were hauled into the building alongside the software licences, and the business then sweated those assets for as long as it practically could.
In the age of AI, that logic is starting to break. Kit bought today can be obsolete in two or three years, chips are in short supply and the companies pulling ahead are no longer those that own the most but those that can adapt the fastest.
In this episode of TCS+, Shane van der Merwe, head of technology finance at Merchant West, explains why the shift from owning technology to simply accessing it is gathering pace.
Van der Merwe unpacks:
• What is driving businesses to let go of owning their technology stack;
• Why hardware — the physical "tin" — has been the last thing to move to a subscription model, long after software did;
• Whether this is a corporate trend only, or whether cash-conscious SMEs are moving too;
• How the rise of AI is accelerating the move away from owned kit;
• The global chip-supply squeeze, and the tiering that can leave South Africa further back in the queue;
• Whether being in the cloud is a competitive advantage in itself;
• What obsolescence really costs a business, even on equipment that is already "paid off";
• How the shift from capex to opex changes the balance sheet — and what happens to the IT team;
• What a Merchant West solution looks like end to end, including how Popia-compliant data destruction is handled when old kit is returned;
• The circular-economy angle, in which returned devices are given a second life rather than being scrapped; and
• How getting this right frees up cash and keeps a business competitive in its core operations, not just its IT.
Don't miss the discussion.
This promoted content was paid for by the party concerned. TechCentralTCS+ | iStore Business on why Apple makes sense for SMEs
For small and medium enterprises, technology must do one thing above all else: get out of the way. Unlike large corporations with dedicated IT departments, SMEs run lean – and every hour spent wrestling with …
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For small and medium enterprises, technology must do one thing above all else: get out of the way. Unlike large corporations with dedicated IT departments, SMEs run lean – and every hour spent wrestling with systems is an hour not spent on the business itself.
In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, brought to you by iStore Business, Sudesh Pillay, executive head of iStore Business South Africa, and Tamia Nontsikelelo, founder and CEO of womenswear label Tol’Thema, explore how SMEs can make smarter technology decisions and why the Apple ecosystem is increasingly the answer.
They discuss:
The pressures SMEs face and why low-maintenance, cost-effective technology is critical to their survival and growth;
How Tol’Thema uses iPhone and Mac in the day-to-day running of the business, and the practical value they deliver to customers;
Why historically fragmented SME IT is giving way to integrated ecosystems, and what is driving the shift;
The total cost of ownership case for Apple hardware, and why the premium price tag isn’t the whole story for budget-conscious businesses;
How Apple’s on-device AI, built into its silicon, helps SMEs future-proof their hardware investment;
The support iStore Business provides to ease hardware transitions and reduce the disruption of moving staff onto a new operating system;
Why native security and data protection features matter enormously to small businesses with no dedicated IT or compliance function; and
Which software and AI subscription costs SMEs can avoid by making better use of tools built into the Apple ecosystem.
Pillay also explains what happens when an SME’s needs outgrow out-of-the-box solutions, and how iStore Business provides the specialist support to scale with them.
Don’t miss this practical conversation about technology that works for South Africa’s small businesses. TechCentralTCS | Icasa's rules skip the real bottleneck: ACT
Communications regulator Icasa’s draft rapid deployment regulations – a critical intervention for the sector – risk failing unless the regulator brings municipalities into the process, according to Nomvuyiso …
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Communications regulator Icasa’s draft rapid deployment regulations – a critical intervention for the sector – risk failing unless the regulator brings municipalities into the process, according to Nomvuyiso Batyi, CEO of the Association of Comms & Technology (ACT).
Speaking on the TechCentral Show with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Batyi said Icasa had consulted network operators and fibre companies but not the South African Local Government Association, which represents the municipalities that will have to apply the rules.
“You cannot just develop regulations without talking to all the parties,” she warned, arguing that Icasa should follow energy regulator Nersa’s approach to municipal engagement.
Asked when final rules might realistically be in place, she said 24 months – provided Icasa works through local government first.
On enforcement she was more optimistic. Section 21 of the Electronic Communications Act, amended in 2014, already empowers Icasa to set uniform procedures for permits and approvals at a reasonable fee, she said. “A lot of people may have missed the amendment.”
The gap is dispute resolution: the draft assumes disputes between licensees, leaving operators without recourse when a municipality refuses a way leave. At Icasa’s public hearings this month, ACT proposed binding municipal deadlines, deemed approval and damages claims for failing to respond to requests in time from telecoms providers.
ACT also objects to the detail in Icasa’s proposed national infrastructure database. Batyi supports mapping in principle but said the granularity sought would expose competitively sensitive information and create construction mafia and cybersecurity risks.
Beyond rapid deployment, Batyi listed four priorities on her plate: the newly finalised Rica framework agreement on Sim card verification, licence renewals by 2028, Icasa’s end-user and subscriber charter regulations and the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill – which she described as “embarrassing” in its current form.
ACT represents Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, Rain and Liquid Intelligent Technologies. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media TechCentralTCS+ | A smarter approach to cloud for South African businesses
South African businesses are spending millions on cloud – and many have very little to show for it. That is the uncomfortable starting point for this episode of TCS+, in which Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to Joel …
Show notes
South African businesses are spending millions on cloud – and many have very little to show for it.
That is the uncomfortable starting point for this episode of TCS+, in which Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to Joel Chacko, executive head of department for cloud services at Vodacom Business, and Jonathan Oaker, founder and CEO of CloudZA, about why the promise of cloud still isn’t matching the reality for so many organisations – and what it takes to close the gap.
Chacko and Oaker discuss why cloud has moved from the server room to the boardroom, with business resilience, agility and AI readiness emerging as the new drivers. They also examine why pressure to “move to cloud” can run ahead of strategy, leaving costs to climb faster than returns.
The pair also cover:
• Common pitfalls behind cost overruns, including poor governance, skills gaps and the slow adoption of cloud-native thinking;
• Why hybrid and multi-cloud architectures have become the baseline, and the strategic drivers behind that shift;
• The mindset organisations need to thrive in the cloud;
• What to look for when choosing a cloud partner; and
• What businesses should stop doing immediately, and where to redirect that energy instead.
Don't miss the discussion. TechCentralTCS | How Optasia lends billions to people banks can’t see
Optasia is on target to distribute more than US$6-billion in credit across its markets in 2026 – and it carries every cent of the default risk itself. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, CEO Salvador …
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Optasia is on target to distribute more than US$6-billion in credit across its markets in 2026 – and it carries every cent of the default risk itself. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, CEO Salvador Anglada unpacks how the JSE’s biggest recent fintech listing actually works.
Formerly known as Channel VAS, Optasia was founded in 2012 as a single-country airtime credit provider. It listed on the JSE main board on 4 November 2025 at R19/share – top of the range, and oversubscribed several times. FirstRand took a 20.1% stake ahead of the IPO and has since raised it to 26.1%.
Today, Optasia’s AI-driven credit decisioning platform operates in 38 countries through mobile operators – MTN and Vodacom among them – and financial institutions, serving more than 120 million monthly active users and making 1.5 billion credit decisions a month. Microfinancing now generates 72% of revenue, overtaking the airtime advance business on which the company was built.
In the interview, with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Anglada discusses:
• What happens in the 30 seconds it takes an unbanked customer in Accra to get a loan – and why partner banks, the “lenders on record”, carry none of the risk;
• The algorithms behind it: more than 5 000 data points per customer, models tailored to each market and a blended default rate of just 1.2% on unsecured loans with no collateral – and no blacklisting of defaulters;
• Optasia’s plans for South Africa, where Anglada sees 15-20 million people without proper access to credit – and why local banks will be the channel;
• The Nigerian regulatory dispute that suspended its airtime credit services – a suspension Anglada calls “a little bit aggressive”;
• Why Optasia chose the JSE over London, and how it works with FirstRand; and
• The road to 2030: new markets including Ethiopia, Egypt and Mozambique, plus SME lending, buy now, pay later and a “virtual credit card” now in testing.
Optasia reports interim results in September, with revenue guided up by more than 50%. Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentralEverything you wanted to know about EVs but were afraid to ask
In the latest episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, host William Kelly is joined in the studio by Greg Cress, automotive and e-mobility industry lead at Accenture South Africa, and Gary Scott of Scottify -- two …
Show notes
In the latest episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, host William Kelly is joined in the studio by Greg Cress, automotive and e-mobility industry lead at Accenture South Africa, and Gary Scott of Scottify -- two of the longest-serving voices in South Africa's electric vehicle scene, and co-authors of a new guide to buying and owning an EV.
The guide was born of the basic questions that keep surfacing: what is a kilowatt-hour? Where will I charge, and will the plug fit? After a lifetime of mindless refuelling at petrol stations, charging is suddenly something owners must think about. The pair's advice is to demystify the maths.
The cost and battery fears, they argue, are largely misplaced. Public fast-charging still works out at about 60% of the running cost of petrol, home charging closer to 25% -- and less still on solar. Early Teslas are passing 560 000km with battery health of 85-88%, no manufacturer offers a battery warranty shorter than eight years, and chemistry is advancing fast, from cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate cells to sodium-ion batteries now arriving.
South Africa, the pair believe, is approaching its tipping point. The global oil shock has pushed EVs into the mainstream conversation -- and cleared dealer stock in the process. The official numbers understate the shift: industry association Naamsa counted just 1 088 battery-electric sales in 2025, but that excludes BYD and other Chinese brands that don't report locally -- and sales nearly doubled year on year in the first quarter of 2026.
Counting the unreported brands, about 500 EVs are now being sold every month, the guests estimate, and Cress predicts about 6 000 for the year. True inflection -- 5% of new vehicle sales -- needs 2 000 sales month, with the under-R400 000 segment, where the pair say two-thirds of South African vehicle buying happens, the battleground to watch.
Their advice for prospective buyers: know why you're in the market before falling for the shiny technology -- and above all, drive one. As Kelly puts it: if you haven't driven an EV, don't tell him they're rubbish.
Don't miss a great discussion! TechCentralWatts & Wheels with Wills: The rands-and-cents case for electric trucks
Aeversa’s John Ford unpacks the rands-and-cents case for electric trucks in this first of a new interview series. TechCentral is proud to present the first episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, our new …
Show notes
Aeversa’s John Ford unpacks the rands-and-cents case for electric trucks in this first of a new interview series.
TechCentral is proud to present the first episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, our new interview show about electric vehicles and the fast-changing world of e-mobility in South Africa. In the debut episode, host William Kelly speaks to John Ford, sales manager at Aeversa, a fleet-focused electrification specialist helping some of South Africa's biggest logistics operators make the switch from diesel to electric.
Ford’s central message is that electrifying a fleet is not about swapping every diesel truck for a battery-powered one. Each depot has its own energy profile – municipal tariff structures, grid capacity, demand charges and time-of-use rates – and the trick is matching the right vehicles, routes and charging strategies to each site. Get it right, he says, and the savings flow: solar charging over midday, battery storage to bridge expensive evening peaks and cheap off-peak grid power overnight.
The numbers from Aeversa’s work with Takealot Fulfilment Services – the e-commerce giant’s logistics arm – back him up. What began in 2022 as a single imported electric truck covering 15 000km in a proof-of-concept trial grew to a 10-vehicle pilot that delivered an average 14% saving in total cost of ownership – before any solar or battery storage was added. With the fleet expanded to 21 vehicles and renewables in the mix, average savings climbed to 16%, peaking at 22% in some months.
Today the fleet numbers 35 vehicles consuming about 1.2GWh/year, with solar providing 60-82% of that energy. Aeversa expects savings of 18-20% on average – and, with global oil prices rattled by the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, potentially more than 30%.
“When you go electric, you can use those savings to expand your fleet or invest in solar and battery storage – and that adds more savings. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle,” said Ford.
Don't miss a great discussion! TechCentral
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