Starting in the early hours of Thursday morning at The Pantry in Rosebank, Johannesburg, a team of 13 people set off including your correspondent set off on what would become an epic adventure full of incredible views, amazing people, good food - and more than a little trouble along the way to keep it interesting and challenging.
Days 1 and 2 of the road trip are covered in some detail here and here . Days 3 and 4 were just as epic, though the charging infrastructure - which had given us grief on days 1 and 2 - was a lot more reliable on the next two legs that took in Gqeberha, Jeffreys Bay, Knysna, George, Oudtshoorn, Prince Albert, Laingsburg, Barrydale and Swellendam.
The road trip involved and was led by Naamsa - The Automotive Business Council, KPMG, Accenture, Woolworths, the Industrial Development Corporation IDC, the UK's Foreign Commonwealth Development Office, the Electric Mission, and Wesbank and FNB. It came ahead of Naamsa's South African Auto Week conference in Cape Town, which was underway at the time of this publication.
The journey, which was filmed for a documentary that TechCentral will republish in a few weeks' time, was aimed at bringing a fresh focus to the challenges that could face EV owners doing long-distance road trips in South Africa, especially in more remote parts of the country. And, unfortunately, we ran into some trouble early on.
