<\/p>\n
You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: I\u2019m chatting with Alan Quinn, chief innovation and product officer at Cars.co.za. Alan, appreciate the time. We are getting R30 petrol, we are getting R30 diesel \u2013 both terrifying numbers, no halfway about it.<\/p>\n
Data from yourselves, Cars.co.za, show that people aren\u2019t buying fewer cars; they\u2019re just maybe looking for more fuel-efficient cars.<\/p>\n
ALAN QUINN: I think total cost of ownership is a conversation in 2026 that we never expected \u2013 and that\u2019s been driven by events in the Gulf and the price of fuel. It\u2019s traumatic visiting a petrol station these days, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: It absolutely is. My wife has a diesel car; it\u2019s an absolute shocker to fill it. I imagine it\u2019s stuff like smaller engines, but are we also seeing some new energy alternatives, maybe hybrids coming in?<\/p>\n
ALAN QUINN: It\u2019s interesting. New energy vehicles have been around for years, but cheaper models came in towards the back half of last year \u2013 the BYD Dolphin, sort of the BYD E2, now the Cherry Q\u2019s launching around the R300\u00a0000 to R400\u00a0000 price range. That\u2019s an interesting price range because it\u2019s very affordable for South Africans.<\/p>\n
But the EV running cost is roughly a third of the fuel cost. It\u2019s about a third the petrol equivalent of a small car. And so it\u2019s become a conversation for certain people that we would never have expected before this year.<\/p>\n
Read:
Affordable electric vehicles gain traction as petrol costs bite
BYD takes on rivals in Japan with its own electric mini car
Absa disrupts EV finance with BYD partnership
BYD looking at establishing SA battery manufacturing plant<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: That\u2019s just it. The prices are coming down, and I\u2019ve had a look at some of those BYDs. They really, really are cheap. They\u2019re also cheap to run, they\u2019re also cheap to maintain.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a complete novice here \u2013 I still have only ICE [internal combustion] vehicles, but servicing and the like is at longer intervals and cheaper because there are no exploding parts in the engine.<\/p>\n
ALAN QUINN: It really is, because you have an electric engine. By nature they\u2019re just more reliable than ICE engines and with fewer moving parts. The service intervals are much wider. And so you benefit on the fuel cost if you want to call it \u2018fuel\u2019 \u2013 and then you also benefit on the servicing cost.<\/p>\n
What you do have an unknown with is depreciation, because the depreciation cost is unknown. When we look at our data, the supply of EVs still exceeds real demand.<\/p>\n
So there\u2019s a lot of interest around EVs, and I think that\u2019s because it\u2019s a new technology and people are trying to get their heads around it, which is good.<\/p>\n
But ultimately it\u2019s not fulfilling into demand. And when supply exceeds demand, it can only read one thing. Your listeners will know economics better than me.<\/p>\n
Read:
More clean energy, less dependency on imported oil
Motus 2026 results show the benefit of Chinese imports
Jaecoo J5 confirmed for production at Chery\u2019s Rosslyn SA plant<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Yes, absolutely. And then there are the hybrids, our hybrids, because one of the worries is range anxiety.<\/p>\n
Although apparently the N3 is now getting charging stations all over, that range anxiety is fading away, but I imagine a lot of it is perhaps more emotional than actually practical.<\/p>\n
Hybrid kind of fits the spot. Does hybrid fit in terms of fuel efficiency and lower cost?<\/p>\n
ALAN QUINN: It really does. Hybrid technology depends on the hybrid. There are plug-in hybrids and then there are traditional hybrids.<\/p>\n
Plug-in hybrid is the newer technology and it\u2019s the one that fills the gap. Most plug-in hybrids give you somewhere between 50 and 80 kilometres a day, so you can do your daily on electric, which means that EV running cost is for Monday to Friday.<\/p>\n
And should you choose to go and visit your aunt in Nelspruit at the weekend, then you can go and do that and not worry about range.<\/p>\n
So it has the benefits of both, it doesn\u2019t have that beautiful service interval efficiency that we spoke of earlier, but it has that.<\/p>\n
And so I think plug-in hybrid is just a technology that will really take off as more models become available and people get their heads around it because, if you use it in the way I described, then you\u2019re getting phenomenal fuel efficiency figures.<\/p>\n
Read:
Navigating the shift toward new energy vehicles in SA
Affordable electric vehicles gain traction as petrol costs bite
High cost of fuel versus cheaper electric vehicles \u2026
Insights into SA\u2019s evolving automotive landscape<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: And 50 to 80 kilometres \u2013 \u00a0that\u2019s plenty. For some people it\u2019s a week, for some people it\u2019s a day; but you can charge overnight at home.<\/p>\n
How much of this has been driven by the prices coming down? My sense is this really is again Chinese cars at the forefront, certainly the BYDs.<\/p>\n
ALAN QUINN: Yes, BYD especially. It\u2019s a beautiful technology; they\u2019re beautiful cars. One must understand that in Beijing and in China EVs \u2013 it\u2019s not that they\u2019re trying to take over the world using EVs and so on; it\u2019s an imperative given the scale of their cities and the pollution of their cities.<\/p>\n
The Chinese invented and invested in EV technologies and plug-in hybrid technologies because they had to.<\/p>\n
You really see the benefits coming out 10 years later, because they had to back then. Remember the Beijing Olympics? They had to shut down the city so they didn\u2019t kill the athletes, right?<\/p>\n
Read:
Electric vehicle sales rise, but Sars rules stuck in the petrol era
Electric vehicles could soon be cheaper than petrol cars in Africa
How SA missed the chance to launch its home-grown electric vehicle<\/p>\n
Now you\u2019re seeing benefits coming out of that technology because they do lead the world because they\u2019ve invested in it further than anybody else has.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Also, if I\u2019m looking for a car, a R300\u00a0000 or R400\u00a0000 Chinese new vehicle with 85% of the bells and whistles \u2013 in some cases even more \u2013 really stacks up against the second-hand car. They\u2019re not just encroaching on the new; I imagine they\u2019re encroaching on the second-hand as well.<\/p>\n
ALAN QUINN: And the exact dynamic you described has disrupted the market, because the second-hand car market is huge in this country. I mean, the average car on our road is more than 10 years old, according to AA figures.<\/p>\n
Think of the vibrancy of the second-hand market, and now suddenly we have a dynamic of these cars coming in at a cheap price point and exactly the dynamic you describe. Why \u00a0buy a second-hand legacy brand that\u2019s three or four years old when I can buy all these bells and whistles and latest gadgetry and technology for new?<\/p>\n
Read:
Chinese entrants compel WeBuyCars to take \u2018a bit of margin squeeze\u2019
Motus rides Chinese car boom as used-car prices come under pressure
Chinese brands gain ground as affordability drives strongest car sales in a decade<\/p>\n
People are doing that, and what it\u2019s causing is a sort of a flux in the second-hand market that we didn\u2019t expect, where there\u2019s less demand in 2026 for a second-hand car, second-hand vehicles, than what we would have expected \u00a0there to be.<\/p>\n
That is causing problems for the big players in the markets, for the WeBuyCars and so on, who\u2019ve actually cited these reasons for their results.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Yes, I was going to say WeBuyCars. We can take a look at that share price \u2013 it\u2019s an ouch share price. It\u2019ll shake out, but it\u2019s hurting at the moment.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll leave it there. Alan Quinn, chief innovation product officer at Cars.co.za, appreciate the time.<\/p>\n
#Rising #fuel #costs #EVs #shift #secondhand #car #markets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here. SIMON BROWN: I\u2019m chatting with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[2184,1364,3995,1255,166,165,13194,1953],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}