The Motoring Desk investigates how the electric vehicle is faring in Somerset West, where it charges, what the neighbours think and whether Fanus Botes was right
It was Fanus Botes who first raised the alarm.
This was at the Engen on Andries Pretorius Street, some months ago, where a small group of us had gathered in the way that men of a certain age gather at filling stations on a Saturday morning — not urgently, not for any specific reason, but because the coffee is acceptable and there is usually something to have an opinion about.
The something, on this occasion, was a white Volvo at the pump opposite, belonging to a man named Gerhard, who lives in Firgrove and who had just informed us that he had ordered an electric vehicle and expected delivery within the month.
Fanus Botes put down his coffee.
“Gerhard,” he said, with the gravity of a man about to say something he has been rehearsing, “you will be stranded in Grabouw and nobody will come for you.”
Gerhard said that the range was over four hundred kilometres and that he had no immediate plans to visit Grabouw.
Fanus said that that was not the point.
We have been thinking about this exchange ever since and we believe, in some way, it captures the entirety of the Somerset West electric vehicle debate.
THE CURRENT SITUATION
The Helderburger Motoring Desk conducted informal research into electric vehicle ownership in the Somerset West, Strand and Gordon’s Bay area and found that the numbers, while small, are no longer trivially small. There are electric vehicles here. They park at Waterstone. They charge at home. Their owners are, by and large, satisfied and have not yet been stranded anywhere, including Grabouw.
We spoke to three EV owners in the area, whom we will call Gerhard andré and a woman in Somerset West who asked not to be named because and we are quoting her directly, “people get very worked up about it and I honestly don’t have the energy, which is ironic.”
WHAT GERHARD SAYS
Gerhard, the Volvo owner, has now had his vehicle for several months. He charges it overnight at home on a dedicated charger he had installed in his garage. He has not experienced range anxiety except once, briefly, on the way back from Hermanus and that resolved itself when he found a charger at a shopping centre and had a very pleasant forty minutes with a good book while the car topped up.
His electricity bill has increased. His fuel bill has ceased to exist. He has done the calculation and is satisfied with the result. He did not mention Grabouw.
WHAT ANDRÉ SAYS
André drives a Tesla and says the public charging network in the Western Cape has improved significantly over the past two years, with chargers now available at several points between Somerset West and Cape Town that are generally operational. He used the word “generally” and when we pressed him on it, he said “mostly” and then changed the subject.
André is an engineer. We trust that he has run the numbers. We note that he also keeps a full description of the nearest charger locations saved in his phone under a contact name that we are not going to reproduce here but that suggests a relationship of mild anxiety.
WHAT THE UNNAMED WOMAN SAYS
The woman who asked not to be named has owned an electric vehicle for fourteen months and reports that the most frequent question she receives from neighbours, family members and strangers at robots is not about range, charging or cost. It is: “But what about load shedding?”
She points out that load shedding has eased considerably and that in any case she charges overnight when rates are lower. She has a solar installation. The system works. She has explained this approximately forty times and has developed a patient, compressed version of the explanation that she can deliver in under ninety seconds without losing composure.
She is, she said, a little tired.
FANUS BOTES, REVISITED
We returned to the Engen on Andries Pretorius Street and found Fanus Botes in approximately the same position as before, which is how it often is with Fanus.
We told him about Gerhard’s experience. The satisfied ownership. The overnight charging. The Hermanus trip. The forty pleasant minutes with a book.
Fanus listened carefully.
“And when the grid goes down?” he said.
We said Gerhard has solar panels.
Fanus nodded slowly. “And when there’s no sun?”
We said there is generally sun in the Western Cape.
Fanus was quiet for a moment. Then he said: “I still think Grabouw is a risk.”
We did not press further. Some positions are held not on the basis of evidence but on the basis of something older and more durable — a feeling, a principle, a fundamental suspicion of things that don’t make a noise when you accelerate. We respect this. Somerset West has held feelings of this kind about various innovations since at least the 1970s and is none the worse for it.
The electric car is here, regardless. It is quiet, it is charging in several garages in Firgrove and Somerset West and Strand as you read this and it will, we suspect, become ordinary within five years in the way that all things become ordinary once enough neighbours have one.
Fanus will adapt. He always does.
He’ll just take the petrol car to Grabouw, to be safe.
The Helderburger Motoring Desk thanks Meneer Swanepoel for his continued consultation and his insistence, noted for the record, that he once drove an electric golf cart at a conference in Paarl in 2019 and found it perfectly acceptable over short distances. This is as far as he is prepared to go.
THE HELDERBURGER
Motoring Desk
Kobus Liebenberg
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