{"id":837287,"date":"2025-09-10T13:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T11:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=837287"},"modified":"2025-09-10T13:28:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T11:28:17","slug":"major-international-car-brand-expanding-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/837287\/major-international-car-brand-expanding-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Major international car brand expanding in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Japan’s Nissan Motor Co has committed to expanding its operations in South Africa amid a wider global restructuring, and in the face of major difficulties for other carmakers in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group revealed this week that it is considering a rollout of hybrid cars that use its e-Power technology in\u00a0South\u00a0Africa\u00a0as a way to help drivers move from petrol engines towards electric vehicles, a company executive said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Low incomes and high import duties have long hampered manufacturers’ efforts to sell more cars in Africa, with patchy power access and a lack of sufficient charging infrastructure posing additional hurdles for EV adoption on the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nissan has already launched hybrids in Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia that run on the e-Power system, which the company thinks could also be popular among South African drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is currently under study,” Ramy Mohareb, communications head for Nissan Africa, told reporters, adding that the company was evaluating factors such as customer demand and market readiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Why we’re saying it fits Africa, is because you don’t need the extensive infrastructure, and battery cost is not as high as the current EVs. There is no range anxiety. So we think that this is the right technology to transition to full EVs in Africa.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nissan’s e-Power system is an electrified powertrain that combines a compact gasoline engine and an electric motor. It uses electricity generated by the engine to drive the vehicle solely with the electric battery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohareb was speaking at the launch of Nissan’s newer models of its X-Trail SUV and Magnite Kuro compact SUV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maciej Klenkiewicz, managing director for Nissan Africa, emphasised the company’s commitment to South Africa amid a major global restructuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Africa\u00a0is in quite good shape … We are not shrinking, we’re going to increase that portfolio<\/strong>,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This counters fears raised earlier in May<\/strong><\/a> that the company’s operations in South Africa were at risk as the global giant looked to salvage its deteriorating finances and operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It announced plans that month to\u00a0eliminate<\/a>\u00a020,000 jobs and close seven of Nissan\u2019s 17 plants by March 2028 after the company reported a \u00a5671 billion net loss for the most recent fiscal year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifting car market in South Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nissan’s talk of expanding in South Africa comes as the local market shifts towards more affordable Indian and Chinese car brands, at the expense of the premium market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest car sales data from Naamsa shows that Chinese car brands are sitting comfortably in the top 10 best sellers in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indian makers, like Mahindra and Tata, are also gaining traction or re-entering the local market at competitive price points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local operations that serve to export to the United States, however, have come under immense pressure in recent months with the imposition of an additional 30% import tariff on vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Premium brand Mercedes-Benz, which has been exporting to the US since 1997, has been hit by the move and is reportedly mulling its operations in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Bloomberg, Mercedes is considering allowing a rival to share its South African plant after the imposition of the tariffs. Losing access to AGOA\u2014which the tariffs already nullify\u2014has raised questions over the viability of the plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloomberg noted that the 30% duty on imports from South Africa has upended the economics of the site in East London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, even outside of these external, US-led factors, local carmakers are still under pressure in the stagnating South African economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, Ford Motor Company South Africa announced plans in August to cut 474 jobs at two of its plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These retrenchments have nothing to do with the US tariffs, as the company does not export vehicles to the US. Instead, it is coming as part of a business review in which it aims to right-size its local operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retrenchments follow announced job cuts at Goodyear SA, which is also looking to reduce 900 jobs at its operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nissan has committed to expanding its operations in South Africa amid a wider global restructuring, and in the face of major difficulties for other carmakers in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":770561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[2042,23574,15796,5364,2051],"class_list":["post-837287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-ford","tag-good-year","tag-mahindra","tag-nissan","tag-tata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837289,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837287\/revisions\/837289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}