While incentives for electric vehicles EVs and hybrids appear to be on the horizon , Parliamentary Portfolio Committee members are showing a healthy degree of scepticism.
During a meeting on the draft White Paper on Green Hydrogen and the move towards manufacturing electric vehicles, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation, Tsakani Shiviti, called on the government to pilot electric vehicles before forcing them on the public.
This is how the real market disruption would occur. It is ideal that as a government we do not introduce all these innovations that we will not test ourselves.
Government is big we should start there and disrupt the market there. If we want society to trust our innovation, we should trust it ourselves, Shiviti said during the briefing, which was held in conjunction with the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry, and Competition.
She said that while government welcomed the innovations, South Africa should not be pushed into accepting things that do not empower its people or resolve its challenges.
