THE National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) has expressed serious concern about the current load shedding schedule.
The association said the destructive higher stages of load shedding have an amplified negative impact on vehicle production and component manufacturing in South Africa.
“Load shedding is the biggest inhibitor to drive the industry’s localisation ambitions, create sustainable jobs within the auto sector and to further attract investment opportunities into the country to grow the South African economy,” said Naamsa CEO Mikel Mabasa.
“We welcome government’s intent announced recently to declare load shedding a national state of disaster so that urgent resources and solutions can be mobilised to assist the country to recover from the current energy crisis.”
Reflecting on the new vehicle sales statistics for the month of January 2023, Naamsa said the new vehicle market had started the year on a positive but weak note.
Aggregate domestic new vehicle sales in January 2023, at 43 509 units, reflected an increase of 2 006 units, or 4,8%, from the 41 503 vehicles sold in January 2022.
Export sales recorded a decline of 367 units, or 1,8%, to 20 536 units in January 2023 compared to the 20 903 vehicles exported in January 2022.
Overall, out of the total reported industry sales of 43 509 vehicles, an estimated 36 353 units, or 83,6%, represented dealer sales, an estimated 12,1% represented sales to the vehicle rental industry, 2,2% sales to government, and 2,1% to industry corporate fleets.
The January 2023 new passenger car market at 31 072 units had registered an increase of 873 cars, or a gain of 2,9%, compared to the 30 199 new cars sold in January last year.
The car rental industry supported the new passenger car market during the month and accounted for a sound 16,2% of sales last year.
The weak performance of the new vehicle market during the first month of the year is in line with expectations of a depressed economy along with ongoing structural problems and cost of living increases.
The same challenges that confronted the economy and the automotive industry last year, such as persistent load shedding, high inflation and interest rates, and currency depreciation, have been carried over to this year.
