Abstract
South Africa is an automotive manufacturing hub in Africa, hosting in total 7 automotive manufacturers producing over half a million units per year consisting of different vehicle brands and models. However, out of all these units produced none of them are electric vehicles, at best only one brand (Mercedes C Class) is a hybrid vehicle. With the growing trend towards the adoption of use of electric vehicles in developed and developing countries, the South African automotive manufacturers are faced with the impending problem of potentially losing some of their biggest markets if they do not adopt manufacturing electric.
To investigate the complexity faced by the automotive manufacturers, it is important to look at the complete problem thereby applying systems thinking. To analyse the barriers towards the adoption of electric vehicle production in South Africa, a literature review is conducted to identify key barriers that have been experienced by countries with a similar economic climate as South Africa as well as general possible barriers against electric vehicles. Similarly, a literature review is conducted to understand the potential risks of not transitioning to electric vehicle production. The key barriers are discussed with industry experts using interviews and opinion surveys to identify the relationships if any of these barriers. Using MICMAC analysis, the direct and indirect relationships of these variables are identified.
Finally, two causal loop diagrams are presented to represent the system. The first causal loop emanating the relations before the application of MICMAC and the second causal loop emanating the relationships after MICMAC analysis.
The results show firstly that if the South African automotive industry does not transition to the
Production of electric vehicles they stand a risk of losing some of their vital markets such as the United Kingdom that have made a decision to stop the sale of ICE vehicles completely by the year 2035. The results also show on the barriers that a relationship between the key barriers. Some barriers such as power outages, and battery life of the vehicle that were highlight as concerns at the beginning of the research later showed through analysis to not have such a big impact. However, some key barriers such as local market for electric vehicles and government policies as well as awareness and technical knowledge of electric vehicles showed to be big factors in the industry, this concurs with research conducted of countries with similar economic climate as South Africa.