India, the largest source of passenger vehicle imports for South Africa, has finalised its fuel efficiency standards for passenger vehicles.
Drawing parallels with India, South Africa remains one of the more energy-intensive economies globally, where energy efficiency offers one of the fastest and most cost-effective means to lower input costs across the economy without constraining growth.
During South Africa's G20 Presidency in 2025, the B20 Industrial Transformation and Innovation Task Force presented market developments in India as a guideline for emerging economies, at a time when electric vehicle sales in India had passed 1,5 million units in the 2023-24 financial year.
The Task Force, chaired by Toyota South Africa CEO Andrew Kirby, found India did not get this growth from subsidies alone. Demand and supply incentives, such as the FAME II programme, increased the adoption of electric vehicles and built local supply chains. Investment in charging and industrial infrastructure made the new technology practical. Technical standards set fleet-wide performance targets, with each manufacturer responding with its product solutions.
“South Africa’s largest market supplier of vehicles now has a fixed path along technical standards for the supply of passenger vehicles,” says Executive Director of The Electric Mission, Hiten Parmar. “Manufacturers in India will build more efficient vehicles to meet these requirements.”
Standards also decide access to export markets. In 2025, South Africa exported 414 268 vehicles, and more than 80 percent of them went to the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom. The EU single market integrates customs, regulations and standards into a framework that drives regional industrial scale.
If South Africa aligns its vehicle standards with international standards as also applicable in the EU, it aligns with these markets and opens high-value markets for new energy vehicles built locally. As a demand-side measure, South Africa taxes CO2 emissions from new vehicles at the point of sale but sets no fleet standard for manufacturers as a supply-side measure.
At the Fuels Industry Imbizo in June 2026, The Electric Mission also called for fuel efficiency standards to incorporated in the Cleaner Fuels 2 policy, which is expected to take effect in mid-2027, as South Africa still operates on the Euro 2 standard introduced in 1997.
"South Africa requires national policy coherence," Hiten says. "Our automotive industry already competes in export markets that are moving to zero emission vehicles, battery electric and hydrogen. Technical standards and production incentives for zero emission vehicles must work together, so that the local market and local factories move in the same direction."
South Africa’s new vehicle market continued to expand in October, with domestic sales increasing by 10.4% year on year, while vehicle exports recorded a recovery after months of declining volumes.
South Africa’s new vehicle market recorded its strongest monthly sales performance of 2026 in October, with 61 890 vehicles sold as the industry maintained the higher levels of activity established towards the end of the third quarter.
MG Motor South Africa used its MG Tech Day and Premium SUV Family launch event to show what is coming to its SUV range. The brand was founded in Britain in 1924, and in 1931 its EX120 ‘Magic Midget’ became the first 750 cc car to exceed 160 km/h.
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Sarah Redshaw
South Africa’s new energy vehicle (NEV) market continued to expand during 2026, with sales for the first nine months of the year already exceeding the total recorded during the whole of 2025.
Charging time remains a worry for many South Africans considering an electric vehicle, who still see it as a disruption rather than a quick stop at a filling station. That view is starting to shift.
South Africa has taken important steps to position itself within the global electric vehicle (EV) industry, but industry stakeholders argue that further policy adjustments are needed if the country is to accelerate adoption and support long-term investment in clean transport infrastructure.
