{"id":5643,"date":"2011-11-24T17:21:10","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T15:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/11\/sa-made-%e2%80%98green%e2%80%99-car-doesn%e2%80%99t-come-cheap\/"},"modified":"2011-11-24T17:21:10","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T15:21:10","slug":"sa-made-%e2%80%98green%e2%80%99-car-doesn%e2%80%99t-come-cheap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/sa-made-%e2%80%98green%e2%80%99-car-doesn%e2%80%99t-come-cheap\/","title":{"rendered":"SA-made \u2018green\u2019 car doesn\u2019t come cheap"},"content":{"rendered":"

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INLSA<\/p>\n

The Joule, South Africa’s first electric powered car on display in front of Parliament. It was developed by Optimal Energy. Picture Jeffrey Abrahams<\/p>\n

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It could cost a lot of green to put South Africa\u2019s first home-grown \u201cgreen\u201d vehicle, the Joule electric car, into commercial production. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe projected investment required to commercialise the Joule is approximately R9 billion,\u201d Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said in a written reply to a parliamentary question yesterday. <\/p>\n

This amount would cover \u201call production-related matters, such as production development, manufacturing and retail operations\u201d, she said. <\/p>\n

The battery-driven Joule \u2013 developed by a company called Optimal Energy \u2013 is aimed at urban users. It has a maximum range of 300km and a top speed of 135km\/h. The government has a shareholding in Optimal Energy. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Phil Mjwara, director-general of the Science and Technology Department, said that more than 20 hand-built Joules had been made as demonstration models. <\/p>\n

He said that the government had invested R125 million in the development of the Joule since 2006. He denied that planned production of the vehicle had stalled. <\/p>\n

Discussions were under way between his department, Trade and Industry and other stakeholders on the best way forward. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, we\u2019re looking at various options\u2026 to determine what route we want to go. These will be tabled early next year,\u201d said Mjwara. <\/p>\n

According to Optimal Energy\u2019s website, the Joule will be \u201cin mass manufacture\u201d from 2013, and available for sale in 2014. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The retail price of the car \u201ccannot be fixed now\u201d. <\/p>\n

Yesterday, Pandor said finding a \u201cone-stop\u201d investor for the Joule was challenging. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe signal from potential investors is that they may consider partnering on certain parts of the value chain,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

She added that the government was developing a position paper on the Joule to provide \u201ca sense of government commitment to the development of the industry\u201d and to be \u201cuseful in improving investor confidence\u201d. <\/p>\n

A second-generation prototype of the Joule will be on display in Durban next week during the UN climate talks. \u2013 Sapa <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INLSA The Joule, South Africa’s first electric powered car on display in front of Parliament. It was developed by Optimal Energy. Picture Jeffrey Abrahams It could cost a lot of green to put South Africa\u2019s first home-grown \u201cgreen\u201d vehicle, the Joule electric car, into commercial production. \u201cThe projected investment required to commercialise the Joule is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-5643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban-2","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}