{
  "id": 19371741,
  "title": "Slow mover, fast future — how SA can leap-frog the global EV transition",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/10/slow-mover-fast-future-how-sa-can-leap-frog-the-global-ev-transition",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-11-10T18:14:51.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Daily Maverick",
    "slug": "daily-maverick",
    "url": "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-11-10-slow-mover-fast-future-how-sa-can-leap-frog-the-global-ev-transition/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "South Africa faces significant challenges in competing with global giants like China in the mass production of electric vehicles. However, by recognizing gaps in emerging technologies, supporting local innovation, and leveraging existing manufacturing strengths, South Africa could leapfrog the competition instead of spending years playing catch-up. Kelvin Naidoo, President of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, suggests that instead of focusing on catching up, South Africa should concentrate on how to meet the next disruption. Delays in adapting industrial policy to global market shifts and technological advances have left local manufacturers struggling against more agile and faster competitors, increasing the risk of local de-industrialization due to factory closures, downsizing, and rising unemployment. Despite progress in renewable energy generation and policy support for new energy vehicles and battery manufacturing, South Africa is still playing catch-up while early-stage NEV technology development is moving forward. Additionally, concerns are growing about the environmental impacts of mining and manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, leading to a reevaluation of low-carbon emissions and the full life-cycle costs of electric vehicles. The cost of replacing entire vehicles with newer technology may also present challenges for consumers. Alternative methods for low-carbon manufacturing and mobility, such as hyperefficient internal combustion engines using traditional or biofuels, are gaining ground. South Africa possesses innovative ideas, but often lacks the necessary support for implementation. To address this, the focus should be on unsolved problems, regardless of their size, and finding ways to support them from idea to commercialization. Given South Africa's relatively small economic footprint, pursuing one big idea is not feasible. Instead, the country should explore multiple possible futures and address gaps where no one else has yet tried to solve. Leap-fencing involves identifying small-scale problems and proposing solutions, accepting the possibility of small failures, and continuously moving forward. While South African consumers are adopting electric and hybrid vehicles, policy support is needed to transition local manufacturing, protect jobs, and incentivize local purchases. However, focusing on full local manufacturing of EVs and lithium-ion batteries is unlikely to succeed against China. The country's expertise in electric motors and internal combustion engines, powered by alternative fuels like hydrogen, ammonia, or green methanol, presents opportunities to adapt existing manufacturing capacity to new fuels and address local problems using renewable resources.",
  "summary": "South Africa cannot compete with global giants such as China in the race to mass-produce electric vehicles. But by identifying gaps in emerging technologies, backing local innovation and building on existing manufacturing strengths, it could leapfrog the competition rather than spend years playing catch-up.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}