I freed myself from the crude-oil curse by switching to an electric car

There is a psychological shift that happens when the fuel price jumps again overnight, another few cents added while you slept, and you are suddenly paying R26, then R28, then knocking on the door of R30 a litre. It feels like an arbitrary tax on your freedom of movement.

Brent crude is currently trading around $104 a barrel, daily Central Energy Fund numbers are pointing to imminent price shocks, and the global oil market feels more volatile than ever.

A month ago, I stopped paying the dividend.

The numbers behind the deal

I drove out of a dealership with a new electric vehicle (EV), the Geely E2 Aspire. The deal was straightforward: a retail price of R339 900, a 10 percent deposit of R33 990, and an on-the-road fee of R5 087, paid in cash (every dealer charges these). I financed the balance on a 25-month Guaranteed Future Value (GFV) agreement, with 23 monthly instalments of R4 767.

This manufacturer heavily subsidises the interest rate on deals through its vehicle finance partner to prime-minus 3.457 percent (currently an effective rate of just over seven percent a year). This made the monthly instalment work for me, but individual rates depend on your credit profile.

A GFV deal means as long as I stay under the agreed mileage and don’t trash the car, Geely takes it back at the end of the term and I will owe nothing further. I can then start a new contract, with or without another deposit.

I chose the shortest term on offer, two years, on purpose. If the world hasn’t gone to hell in a handbasket by then, the EV market should look very different, with far more well-priced choices. I expect to step into a similar car, or its replacement, with closer to 450 km of range useful for longer trips, at a similar cost.

My monthly insurance premium comes to R796, showing that EVs are not expensive to insure.

In reality, though, I didn’t just buy a hatchback, but a personal exit strategy from liquid fuel.

Energy sovereignty versus global volatility

Every time you fill up an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle in South Africa, your money leaves local shores and flows into foreign petro-states. We remain hostage to foreign policy whims, a bellicose US, Middle Eastern supply corridor friction and currency depreciation against international crude benchmarks.

South Africans often raise the Eskom objection: aren’t you just burning coal at the power station instead of petrol in your tank?

That argument ignores what’s happening on South African rooftops. Millions of us have installed solar systems simply to survive load-shedding. Pair an EV with home solar, and that investment gets a second job: your home becomes a zero-cost petrol station.

• Standard municipal grid rate (R3.50/kWh): driving an EV costs roughly 42 cents per kilometre, at a standard 12 kWh/100 km commuter benchmark for a hatchback EV.
• Rooftop solar PV charging: charging during peak afternoon sunshine drops your marginal running cost to R0.00 per kilometre.

You aren’t just bypassing Eskom, you are bypassing OPEC entirely.

The commuter illusion: overlanding vs gridlock

Automotive advertising sells South Africans a grand adventure fantasy. We are told we need double-cab bakkies, Fortuners and Prados to conquer the dunes of Namibia, cross the Richtersveld, or forge rivers in the Okavango Delta.

The reality is more mundane: most of these heavy diesel vehicles spend their lives idling in peak-hour traffic on the N1, N2 or M1, burning fuel to carry a single person to an office park in Sandton, Century City or Menlyn.

MONTHLY VEHICLE ENERGY COSTS
Vehicle	Monthly cost	Cost per km
Geely E2, home solar PV (R0.00/kWh)	R0.00	R0.00/km
Geely E2, standard municipal grid (R3.50/kWh)	R958.00	R0.42.km
Small petrol hatchback (5.75 L per 100 km @ R26.05/L)	R1 345.00	R1.50/km
Midsize petrol car (7.50 L per 100 km @ R26.05/L)	R4 455.00	R1.95/km
Diesel double-cab bakkie (10.0 L per 100 km @ R28.79/L)	R6 564.00	R2.88/km
Based on vehicle use in the Pretoria-Sandton corridor at 2 280 km/month and author's calculations www.smartaboutmoney.co.za

For a double-cab bakkie commuter switching to an EV, the monthly fuel savings alone (about R5 606) more than cover the Geely E2’s R4 767 monthly payment, putting positive cash flow back into their bank account from day one.

That shift away from diesel double-cabs is already under way.

Enter the electric bakkie

Enviro Automotive, a specialist vehicle supplier, is converting the Geely E2 into a panel van for small businesses and delivery fleets, priced at R370 000. Geely has also just launched the Riddara, a fully electric bakkie, and it’s drawing a lot of interest, Francois Malan, head of sales at Enviro Automative and Greg Maruszewski, managing director of Geely SA, say.

The Riddara uses roughly 22 kWh per 100 km against the E2’s 12 kWh benchmark, but even at that consumption the saving over diesel remains dramatic.

The entry-level Riddara Aspire Econ double cab, at R611 900, is priced in line price with entry-level diesel double-cabs from established brands, and its load and towing capacity hold up against them, but without a diesel bill.

Real-world living

I work from home in Hermanus in the Western Cape, with a weekly 240 km round trip over Sir Lowry’s Pass into Cape Town.

Over my first 898 km of driving, a single 240 km Hermanus-to-Cape Town round trip cost R107 in electricity. The same trip in a midsize petrol car would cost R469, so the EV saves R361 per trip. On my work-from-home schedule (about 1 300 km/month), my monthly energy bill sits at R581, saving nearly R2 000 every month compared to petrol.

The range of an EV before it needs charging depends on how you drive. On a full charge, Geely’s official figure for the E2 is 325 km, and commuters doing mostly urban, stop-start driving are reporting over 340 km. My own Hermanus-to-Cape Town run is almost all open road. The Geely returns closer to 285 km, since open-road speeds draw more energy than town driving does.

Charging is unhurried rather than fast. On the slow portable charger, I have taken the battery from 46 percent to 100 percent in under seven hours. A home wallbox, which is included in the purchase price but requires installation, or a public DC charger would be faster.

Behind the wheel, the car defies its price tag. The rear-wheel-drive platform delivers 85 kW and 150 Nm of instant electric torque, making mountain pass overtakes effortless. It turns on a dime, boasts advanced safety features, and has 140 km/h in reserve for a safe overtake if you need it. Dropping to 110 or 100 km/h stretches the range per charge further still.

The sub-R350k tipping point

This story isn’t just about my car. There is a broader structural shift in South African motoring.

The arrival of the Chery Q EV400 Comfort (R349 900) later this month, with its larger 42.7 kWh battery, a claimed 400 km range and generous 2 700 mm wheelbase, alongside the BYD Dolphin Surf (R341 900) and the Geely E2 Aspire (R339 900), means practical, efficient electric vehicles have officially broken the sub-R350k barrier and people are shifting to EVs.

But EVs need to be cheaper still. Ad valorem tax is levied on every car priced above R250 000. It dates from the 1990s and was designed to tax luxury combustion cars, not to steer people toward or away from EVs. Policymakers need to fix that, along with import duties, and the shift will happen faster. If they ignore it, they shouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a voting issue for car buyers.