Engines are dead, long live the engine

In the politically correct world we find ourselves in, you often get the impression that the internal combustion engine (ICE) is about as outdated as the old South African flag. Just this month, Denmark has made a plea to the European Union to ban the sales of ICE cars by 2040 and the Danes are not alone in their fight. The Netherlands is planning to enforce the ban by 2030 and Norway is adamant to stop ICE new car sales by 2015. It seems Norway is miles ahead in the electric vehicle (EV) evolution, with the all-electric Nissan Leaf being the top selling car over there last year.

Most major manufacturers have also moved all their resources in developing EV technologies as connectivity and autonomous driving are the two major targets in the current rat race.

But South Africans have no reason to panic just yet. Although a handful of Leafs, a car that isn’t even available locally anymore, BMW i3s and Jaguar I-Paces have been sold, their high prices are still what scares people off, never mind concerns of whether Eskom is dependable enough to get them to work every day.

And key to the whole movement is a buy in from government to relax the import duties, something we’ve heard rumblings about but like commissions of inquiries, very little will come from.

And as another clear indication of how far behind the world we are in terms of the EV evolution is certain findings of a recent study conducted by the AA (see Page 9). It shows that vehicle owners are keeping their cars for longer nowadays with the majority driving their cars for between five and ten years. As much as 30% are also keeping their primary cars for over 10 years.

The reason being that people seem to have faith in the quality of cars nowadays allowing them to last much longer.

So if you do the maths, you can easily work out how long the shelf life of ICE cars in South Africa will be. It is clear that we are in no position to impose a ban on ICE cars yet by 2040, so let’s just for argument’s sake work on 2050. If we apply South African condition to that, people who buy the last of the ICE cars in 2050 could easily drive them into the 2060s. And remember that those bans will only apply to new car sales, so if you buy a second hand car in 2060 you might even operate it beyond 2070. And that is still a lifetime away.