Crying about the recent fuel price hike? Yeah so are we friend. Whether you blame Trump and the Israel Iran conflict for it or just think our local fuel suppliers jumped the gun and overpriced fuel in advance, what’s become clear is fuel might stay a little pricier as long as the world stays in this uncertain state. And all that got me thinking about electric cars again, which could potentially be an answer to our fuel problems, if the above video review didn’t show how far that solution actually is.

Now the video review above by the new YouTube car channel Piston Me Off is specifically on the Volvo EX30 electric car, however in between Youtuber Phoebe Nyashanu’s quirkiness, tons of car facts and the general road trip you expect in a car review, a very clear fact comes to light in this video; the infrastructure for electric vehicles, even in South Africa is very far from what it needs to be. Over the 347km trip in the video from Johannesburg to Bombela, both Nyashanu and her car faced faulty charging stations, an odd token and app ecosystem along with sparse charging spots even across a set travel route that is known to have adequate charging stations. This probably isn’t news for anyone who has watched a lot of electric car roadtrip reviews, but it brings a up a very clear reality that exists for electric cars right now; in most countries adopting them, the infrastructure to support them just isn’t ready . This isn’t really a surprise as again, it’s a common issue all over the world, with maybe only China and certain parts of Europe now being reliable countries where you can use an electric car just like a regular petrol or diesel one.

Yet note we talked about countries actively adopting EVs ,and that’s because well, Zimbabwe is far from a single one of those. Yes there’s a Tesla or two roaming the streets of Harare and technically you’ll find a Smart or Nissan Leaf owner here and there, but acting like those cars can’t be used in very limited capacities and they pretty much only charge at the homes of their owners. And that makes it bleak thinking about EV’s as a Zimbabwean alternative when the country is very much still coming to grips with what they are. And honestly that sucks. After all just check that video review again, the EX30 looks amazing, and along with a whole generation of vehicles that would actually be great to use here (most of them are SUV’s and crossovers so more comfort on our pothole-ridden roads), and as a lot of studies have shown, would likely be cheaper to run then fuel powered cars. But well, we don’t even have enough electricity to run our houses here, so we should probably solve that first. Either way, it’s quite a shame.

Seriously, though, what are we going to do about these fuel prices?!

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