Best charging network for EV owners
As with fuel stations, you have a choice of where you can charge an electric vehicle. Some of these range from dealerships to filling stations and even includes the convenience of charging at a mall. Find out what your options are and where you would typically find alternatives.
Owning an electric vehicle requires a few changes in your life. Once you get over the initial mindset shift around refuelling/recharging, living with an electric vehicle is rather simple and not too far removed from any other vehicle.
Related: Different ways to charge an electric car
Once you've familiarized yourself with your daily route and routine, you may start to wonder about the rest of the country and how extensive the charging infrastructure is and what options are presented to you. European countries offer you the choice of energy suppliers but locally we have Eskom as our sole provider. What we do have a choice in, is who we choose to support when it comes to charging stations.
Top charging networks in SA
Charging networks in South Africa have been around since 2013 when Nissan rolled out a plan to install public chargers for their Nissan Leaf. At the time, it was the only EV available in South Africa but was soon joined by the BMW i3. BMW and Nissan teamed up to install six charging points as part of their agreement which lapsed in 2017. Since then, BMW has expanded their public charger footprint independently of Nissan.
Many of these original charging points still remain and are equipped with the CHAdeMO-type plug, suited to charging the Nissan Leaf with a 50kW DC charge. Some also have regular Type 2 plugs with AC charging for other electric vehicles.
The primary service provider for public charging infrastructure is GridCars, managing 95% of the country's public charging network. Their network consists of infrastructure that has been implemented by both Jaguar and BMW and includes numerous independent installations as well. Most recently, Audi has been working with GridCars to further expand the public charging infrastructure.
GridCars invested R30-million into expanding the public charging infrastructure with Jaguar being the first to partner with GridCars to expand the network in 2019. This network is managed and maintained by GridCars.
Many of the public charging stations can be found at dealerships of manufacturers that sell electric vehicles. This includes many Jaguar, Land Rover, BMW, MINI, Audi, Volvo and Porsche dealerships.
The BMW and MINI stations are owned by BMW as part of the ChargeNow network, similarly, Jaguar Land Rover South Africa owns their stations, as does Porsche. However, they are still managed by GridCars who handle the card management, billing and remote connectivity issues.
You will be able to find an interactive map with GridCars managed charge points here: Live map
Alternatively, if you're looking for a combination of the GridCars locations and Nissan charge points, PlugShare will be able to guide you.
