South African new-truck market has increased overall sales by 2.3% year-on-year for the first nine months of the year, defying a slew of negative economic indicators.

The Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger - the two most popular vehicles in South Africa by far - have long had a ding-dong battle in the market share stakes. Some motorists swear that the Hilux is a better bakkie. Others are die-hard Ford fans. 

Now that the fuel price has rocketed to a record level - you may be tempted to consider an electric car instead.

“Electric vehicles are very exciting and one of the biggest expected changes in the automotive sector. In addition to being much 'greener', they have around 30 times fewer working parts which boasts obvious benefits in manufacture, maintenance and reliability,” said Michael Muller, co-founder and managing director of CarZar.co.za.

While we are seeing a spatter of electric vehicles entering our markets, South Africa is still a long way off from seeing electric cars in every garage.

"Adoption will happen first in the most developed, densely populated cities with the highest regulatory incentives (emission controls and tax incentives for consumers and producers)," Muller said. "Even now, adoption in developed markets is still being driven almost solely by emissions regulations and not yet market demand. This will drive the R&D and scale to make it commercially economical for adoption in South Africa, but this will take a long time."

But would you get more bang for your buck by ditching petroleum and switching on your garage plug point?

It is significantly cheaper to get your car going with electricity than petrol.
Assuming an annual distance of around 20,000 kilometres, and a decent consumption rate of 8 litres of petrol per 100 kilometres, you are now looking at R27,328 (inland) and R26,384 (coastal) a year for petrol.

Compare this to the BMW i3 (94 Ah), which runs with a consumption rate of 13.1kWh/100 km and can drive up to 200km per charge.  The means it can use 2,620 kWh of electricity over 20,000km.

In the hotly contested race for big pickup profits, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV has pulled an upset the last two months as its freshly redesigned Ram truck outsold General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Silverado, according to sales data obtained by Bloomberg News.

The South African new-vehicle market declined by 1.9% in September, to 49 670 units, compared with the same month last year.

Mercedes-Benz last week unveiled the electric Actros heavy-duty truck.  The first eActros was delivered to German logistics company Hermes in September for use under real-life conditions. By the end of this year, Mercedes-Benz will have ten such vehicles on the road with customers. Series production is planned for 2021.