South Africa’s Automotive Panorama Is Altering, And That Is A Good Factor

New Entrants Akin to Omoda & Jaecoo Present that They Are Not Afraid to Introduce Plugins into the South African Market

The South African automotive business is altering. As mentioned yesterday, Toyota,Volkswagen, Ford, Mazda, Nissan, Common Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, BMW, and Audi had been among the conventional dominant manufacturers in South Africa 20 years in the past and earlier than. Toyota and Volkswagen nonetheless dominate until immediately, and Suzuki has actually grown its footprint in South Africa over the previous 10 years. Nevertheless, there are some thrilling new gamers on the town providing a greater diversity of fashions at costs providing nice worth for customers. In 2025, we’re seeing extra motion in South Africa from the likes of Omoda, Jetour, Chery, Haval, and Jaecoo. Nice Wall Motors (GWM) and Chery Holdings are ramping up their presence in South Africa and the car gross sales charts present it. In July 2025, Chery was as much as fourth place and GWM was in seventh place.

The benefit of the altering automotive panorama is that gamers like Chery and GWM aren’t afraid to usher in their plugin autos in a market the place plugins have been very sluggish to take off. Let’s take a look at the PHEV gross sales in South Africa in 2024. 737 PHEVs had been offered in 2024, up 100% from 368 items offered in 2023. Nevertheless, PHEVs solely made up 0.14% of complete car gross sales in South Africa in 2024. So far as the highest promoting PHEVs in South Africa, BMW’s X1 plugin hybrid topped the charts in 2024, promoting 145 items. BMW took second place as nicely. The X3 registered 97 items in 2024. The plugin hybrid model of the BMW X3 is definitely in-built Pretoria, South Africa, which is a pleasant increase for South Africa’s meeting and manufacturing business, which is dominated by ICE car manufacturing. The opposite plugin hybrid car that might be in-built Pretoria is the Ford Ranger PHEV. BMW’s X5 was joint third, together with the VolvoXC60, with each fashions registering 74 items. These had been adopted by BMW’s XM and Volvo’s XC90, which registered 64 items every.

Plugin hybrid electrical autos (PHEVs) divide opinion on a regular basis, as they’ve for years. Lots of people really feel that with the best way BEV tech has superior in current instances, PHEVs are now not wanted as a transition choice to full electrical. Nevertheless, as Dr. Maximilian Holland says, “BEVs pollute lower than PHEVs, however the latter nonetheless have a crucial position in sure niches the place BEVs might not but totally meet customers’ wants. PHEVs (or EREVs) — when plugged in as designed — pollute quite a bit lower than HEVs, which in flip pollute lower than diesels!”

Now allow us to take a look at PHEV gross sales in South Africa for the primary 6 months of 2025. In simply 6 months, 788 PHEVs had been offered in South Africa. Which means extra PHEVs had been offered in H1 2025 in South Africa than in the entire of 2024. The introduction of recent fashions from Chery, Omoda, Jaecoo, and Haval has performed an enormous half on this. Chery’s PHEVs made up 27% of all PHEVs offered in South Africa in H1 of 2025. BMW nonetheless leads the best way with 48% of the PHEV market throughout that interval. There’s a rising variety of plugin hybrids with electrical ranges above 100 km that at the moment are being provided in South Africa by these Chinese language producers. Chery seems to be main this transition, providing plug-in hybrids at cheap costs, and the South African market appears to be responding nicely to this. These supply customers extra worth than the older technology PHEVs from another markets that had electrical ranges of lower than 40 km in actual driving circumstances. Lots of people commute between Pretoria, Centurion, Midrand, and Johannesburg, and PHEVs with an actual vary of over 90km will supply nice worth. Lots of people now even have photo voltaic at residence and charging these PHEVs with photo voltaic makes the worth proposition financially stronger. 

Between January and June 2025, the BMW X3 PHEV topped the charts, promoting 170 items. That’s greater than the BMW X1 PHEV offered in all of 2024. The BMW X1 PHEV was in second place, promoting 94 items within the first 6 months of the 12 months, exhibiting that BMW PHEV gross sales are nonetheless the chief in South Africa.  Now let’s take a look at the remainder of the highest 5. In joint third had been the Chery Tigoo Professional 7 PHEV and the Jaecoo J7. Rounding out the highest 5 was the Omoda C9 PHEV. Think about that. Three of the highest 5 PHEV fashions in South Africa are from the Chinese language automakers. Including the Haval H6 PHEV in joint seventh place with the BMW 5 Collection PHEV reveals once more the Chinese language automakers are actually selling PHEVs in South Africa greater than the opposite conventional automakers, with BMW the one actual legacy automaker pushing PHEVs laborious in South Africa. Who would have predicted this? No conventional giants like Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Renault, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, or Common Motors within the prime 10 of the car class in South Africa? Issues carried out modified for these conventional automakers in South Africa.

Let’s take a look at one of many huge sellers within the total market, pickups. Pickup vans are a giant deal in South Africa. The Toyota Hilux, the Ford Ranger, and the Isuzu D-Max often characteristic prominently on the prime of South Africa’s car gross sales charts. The Toyota Hilux often tops the annual gross sales charts. However with Toyota South Africa not wanting like selling PHEV pickups, PHEV gross sales charts for pickups may not characteristic many conventional automakers quickly. Some Chinese language automakers at the moment are beginning to deliver PHEV pickups as a substitute. Finish-of-year gross sales knowledge ought to give us an concept of how nicely PHEV pickups are doing in South Africa, as among the fashions have solely lately been launched into the market.

We noticed in markets comparable to China final 12 months that PHEVs with longer electrical mode vary skilled vital enhance in market share. As extra of those “longer vary PHEVs” enter extra markets all over the world, will we see a resurgence in PHEV gross sales? Particularly in growing markets the place charging infrastructure might not but be totally developed. Might PHEVs re-establish their position as a transition choice to full BEVs in such markets? PHEVs with electrical ranges of 200–300 km would attraction to non-early adopters, particularly in markets the place charging infrastructure isn’t totally developed. Maybe that is what some Chinese language automakers are pondering, as fairly a variety of them are contributing to a brand new wave of new-generation PHEVs with battery packs of over 50 kWh and electrical ranges of about 200 km — thereafter, complemented by a 1.5T or 2.0T ICE engine. In China and another markets, PHEVs at the moment are cheaper to purchase in comparison with equal full ICE autos — from each an upfront buy perspective in addition to an working or complete value of possession (TCO) perspective. Are we now beginning to see this pattern coming to South Africa? Time will inform.