LifeafteranelectricvehicleandaTeslapowerwall

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Show notes

Andreas Cambitsis is the CEO of Business Science Corporation. He’s previously worked as a strategy consultant for the Boston based Monitor group before co-founding the Cyest Corporation (now the holding company of BSC). In this episode we explore life with an electric vehicle in South Africa, some of the potential disruptions from the convergence of EVs and autonomous driving, and the cost/benefit trade-offs to switching to a solar PV system. Please enjoy the conversation and subscribe for more.

Episode summary

Load shedding has not affected the experience of owning an electric vehicle (EV) in South Africa. There is also a misconception around how much electricity an EV consumes, for Andreas this is less than 10% of his household consumption. EVs shift energy generation from the local car engine to the commercial power plant. Globally, commercial power production is becoming more sustainable and greener due to regulation and changing economics.

Tesla is pioneering both the creation of EVs and autonomous driving. EVs and autonomous driving are coupled together because high levels of utilization of autonomous cars (mobility as a service) will require the lower cost of maintenance offered by EVs. As stands your personal car only has about a 4% utilization, its idle 96% of the time opening the potential for disruption. This disruption could also extend to office parking space in CBDs, petrol stations, as well as your own personal garage. We could achieve the mobility we require with a fleet that is 80% smaller but with higher utilization.

We have limited choice in South Africa from an EV perspective, there is greater variety in the US and EU. You aren’t paying a large premium for EVs any more, any remaining premium is offset against the fuel saving as charging costs are about 1/5 that of a normal fuel bill for the same distance travelled. As stands developed markets are at cost parity for a mid-sized EV. Economies of scales will continue to pressure the cost of EVs lower.

The cost of solar PV and batteries are dropping by somewhere about 5-20% per year. Going totally off grid is expensive largely because of the batteries. Feeding excess solar back into the grid is good for utilities because it’s a cheaper source of capacity with no capital outlay from their side. Australia has the potential situation of instability in the grid become of too much energy being fed back. There is an opportunity to re-finance retail consumers home equity in order to fund the installation of solar infrastructure. This can then be paid back by the savings on their monthly electricity bill. The typical setup cost for solar PV with batteries is somewhere between R140-250k depending on the size of the household.