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- Although electric mobility is still in its infancy in South Africa, there is at least one program that rewards innovation in the electric vehicle sector.
- The uYilo Kickstart Fund offers up to R1 million in financing for joint projects with at least a critical function or an established proof of concept.
- So far, projects on battery systems, charging solutions, motors, inverters and remote monitoring systems have been funded.
- More articles can be found at www.BusinessInsider.co.za.
A fund to support electric mobility, products and services in South Africa is accepting applications for its inclusion in 2022, with up to 1 million Ren available for joint projects.
The world is slowly moving away from the internal combustion engine towards clean and sustainable energy. The UK will phase out sales of new gasoline and diesel cars in 2030. The United States wants half of all vehicles sold in the country to be electric at the same time.
More than 20 countries recently signed a declaration on climate change pledging to work to ensure that sales of new cars and vans are zero emissions by 2040 worldwide and by 2035 at the latest in leading markets.
South Africa is not a signatory to the COP26 Declaration to Accelerate the Transition to 100% Emission Free Cars, and electric mobility has not yet made any significant progress. In 2020, fewer than 100 electric vehicles were sold in South Africa, or 0.02% of all domestic automobile sales.
And although acceptance has been slow, the South African government is trying to promote electromobility – or eMobility – in the country through important private partnerships.
The New Energy Vehicle Paper, published in May 2021, serves as a roadmap to make South Africa a major player in the world of automobile and component manufacturing. President Cyril Ramaphosa reiterated this commitment to electric vehicle production in October, citing commercial production of a hybrid vehicle at Toyota’s KwaZulu-Natal plant.
The uYilo eMobility Program, launched in 2013 as part of the Technology Innovation Agency, aims to enable, facilitate and mobilize electromobility in South Africa. The program, hosted by Nelson Mandela University with support from government agencies, private companies and international climate protection initiatives, focuses on developing the eMobility ecosystem.
The uYilo eMobility program is currently running numerous pilot projects and test systems, from regenerative energy generation to charging infrastructure and battery technology to the manufacture of electric vehicles and components.
The uYilo Kick Start Fund is one of the ways the program aims to support innovation, research and development in the field of eMobility. Applications for the fund opened on Monday must be submitted by noon on January 31st.
“Developing a local e-mobility value chain is the key outcome of the uYilo Kickstart funding initiative,” said Hiten Parmar, director of uYilo.
“The Kickstart Fund focuses on accelerating existing research and development to the point where it can be brought to market. He provides support for local products and services as well as skills development so that South Africa can use its own resources to build an electric vehicle industry with expanded export opportunities and job creation locally. “
The fund offers R500,000 for individual projects led by a single participant and up to R1 million for a collaborative project.
The projects funded so far include work on battery systems, charging solutions, motors, inverters and remote monitoring systems.
Eligible projects must focus on energy storage technologies, electric vehicle systems, charging infrastructure in smart grids or the connected car. Projects that lead to the local production of a product or the provision of a service or support public transport also have priority.
Basic or basic research is not funded. Projects must be at least at Technology Readiness Level 3 (TLR3), with a critical function or proof of the concept. Then the applied research of a project can move forward and early-stage development can begin. At TRL3, experimental work should verify that the concept works as expected.
