South Africa’s taxi industry is a tough nut to crack.
One only needs to think of the disastrous attempts from a couple of decades ago when the erstwhile administration of Thabo Mbeki tried to recapitalise the country’s sprawling minibus commuter sector, much to the chagrin of taxi bosses and drivers alike.
But it also depends on what your perspective is, as is the case with GoMetro, the fleet management incubator spearheading an ambitious electronic vehicle (EV) decarbonisation drive for the public transport sector.
Last week, a lengthy innovation project looking at ways and means to steadily replace internal combustion engine (ICE) taxis with EV models culminated in the launch of the eKamva, a net-zero taxi made by Chinese original equipment manufacturer, Higer.
Taking its name from the isiXhosa for ‘into the future’, GoMetro CEO Justin Coetzee dispelled criticism that taxi bosses would be disinclined to de-ICE the industry for the sake of clean-air EV replacements.
He said because of GoMetro’s research into the pros and cons, “we found that the industry embraced what we were doing”.
“We have a good relationship with taxi bosses and their drivers because they recognise what we are trying to achieve.”
Looking back at where it all began, Coetzee said GoMetro started looking at the taxi industry about ten years ago, collecting data to quantify the size and scale of the sector.
“The minibus taxi sector is a reality of how transport is delivered in South Africa. We see it whenever there’s a taxi strike – I call it labour shedding. Minibus taxis are so essential to our economy, it would grind to a halt if we didn’t have them.”
Putting a finer point on it, Coetzee said: “They really are an asset to our economy and we should be trying to help them.”
Using this as its primary motivation, GoMetro set out to map taxi routes, examine ridership, and generally immerse itself in all aspects of the business, “to really get an understanding of the industry,” Coetzee said.
“We needed to find out how do we turn them into more formal systems. How do we give them the tools to do what they need to do to run scheduled operations for improved facilities and customer experiences? And the industry was very receptive to it.”
Initial research cracked open the bonnet of the business in Rustenburg, Polokwane, Mbombela and Cape Town, to name a few of GoMetro’s focus nodes, before the project was stopped in its tracks by Covid-19.
Thankfully, the “years and years of trying to do something meaningful”, found traction anew when GoMetro was approached by various multilateral development finance bodies to look at “electrifying Africa”.
Also, the incubator had to broaden its scope to include the commuter markets of Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda, among others.
To make a long story short, Africa’s first electric minibus was enthusiastically received at last week’s Smarter Mobility Africa Summit in Midrand.
Although the eKamva is currently busy with ‘homologation’ (approval processes) by the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications, Coetzee gets excited when he talks about the power consumption and range specifications of the eKamva.
“Its charging infrastructure requires a micro-grid and is rank-adjacent,” meaning it won’t be too physically disruptive, if at all, to the current taxi rank set-up in South Africa.
Yes, import duties and initial input costs were always a drawback, but the upfront expense of the eKamva by far exceeded the costs of running an ICE taxi, said Coetzee.
“It requires a 50DC charging point and charges from zero to 80% in less than an hour. It will be 30-50% less costly to run than a fuel-driven taxi, and part of the project is to scope it for local manufacturing and assembly.”
