Driving a Tesla from Cape Town to Joburg during load-shedding

Even with the relatively limited number of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations on South Africa’s major national routes and continuous load-shedding, it is currently possible to drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg in a Tesla in roughly two days.

Many South Africans are sceptical about the potential of EVs as they believe the prevalence of load-shedding could leave you stranded at an offline charging station without battery power.

That did not happen with Rubicon E-mobility project manager Hilton Musk, second cousin of Tesla owner Elon Musk, and Rubicon Junior Engineer of Analytics and Monitoring, Nick Bailey.

The pair recently drove the company’s Tesla Model X from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and MyBroadband wanted to learn more about their experience regarding the practicality of driving the electric SUV over such a long distance.

Musk and Bailey set off on the roughly 1,400km trip at 09:00 on 26 February 2023 and arrived in Johannesburg at about 16:00 on 28 February 2023.

The trip took more than two days — 55 hours, to be specific — when including 25 hours across overnight stopovers in Beaufort West and Bloemfontein.

“This was the first experience we had driving the Tesla from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and compared to some other shorter trips we’ve done, was a little different but in the end, it was for a different reason so we really enjoyed it.”

The time on the road — including charging and rest stops — amounted to about 30 hours, of which around 19 hours were spent actually driving.

Hilton Musk, Rubicon E-mobility project manager, standing next to the company’s Tesla Model X during a charging stop,

While that is still longer than many people would have taken when driving a petrol or diesel car,

Firstly, they recently had the Tesla’s tyres replaced and its wheel alignment was out, which could cause additional tyre wear and excessive battery consumption.

That limited driving speeds to an average of 90–100km/h for most of the first two days.

The wheel alignment issue was fixed in Bloemfontein, after which the Tesla could be driven at the N1’s 120km/h speed limit.

Not counting the short stop at Colesberg due to load-shedding and the final top-up at the end of the trip at Mall of Africa, Midrand, they stopped seven times to charge up.

Musk said they only had to wait once to access a charging station but got held up slightly by other EV drivers occupying direct current (DC) chargers.

“We then used the AC [alternating current] charger while we waited. It’s actually a great way to meet fellow EV drivers, but maybe not so great if you are in a rush.”

Rubicon’s Tesla Model X being charged outside 4 Sheep Restaurant in Beaufort West

At the time of their trip, Eskom was rotating between stage 3 and stage 4 load-shedding, so MyBroadband was curious to know how this impacted charger availability.

Musk said they had to add a lot of towns’ load-shedding schedules to the EskomSePush app to plan their drive accordingly.

However, because they could only use a slow AC charger at a station in Richmond, Northern Cape, they arrived later in Colesberg than planned.

“We were pretty fortunate on our trip to only experience load-shedding once, while we were charging at the Caltex in Colesberg,” said Musk.

“The Engen in Colesberg is apparently on generator backup, but we never stopped there and chose to rather move on to Gariep Dam.”

The longest distance driven without charging was on the final stretch between Ventersburg and the Mall of Africa shopping centre — measuring 267km.

However, at their last stop at the shopping centre’s Rubicon-operated Audi 150kW DC charging station, the Model X still had around 170km of range left.

The table below summarises the details of the stops on Musk and Bailey’s trip.

Musk described the general experience of charging infrastructure along the route as “mixed”.

“Either load-shedding or DC issues did cost us some time on the trip, but it was extremely useful for us to experience this so that we could learn first-hand what our customers experience and continue to improve,” Musk said.

“The knowledge we gained and the people we met along the way were the highlights of the trip for us and are invaluable to how we approach the customer experience at our own charging stations across the country,” Musk said.

If South Africa had a Tesla Supercharger network similar to those in the US, Canada, and Europe, the experience would have been very different.

The fastest available charger on Tesla’s network in those regions can add roughly 175 miles (282km) of range to a Tesla Model X in just 15 minutes.

Adding the same amount of range as Musk and Bailey covered during the trip to the Model X with that charger would take just over 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Musk said there was a need for more charging infrastructure across South Africa on these major routes, especially at destinations where people would likely stay over — and other popular stops along the way.

Nevertheless, Musk pointed out that the record for shortest total trip time ever in an EV between Cape Town and Johannesburg was around 19 hours, on par with a petrol or diesel car’s travel time.

That was achieved using a Mercedes-Benz EQS that was charged five times along the same route and ended with 171km of range at the finish line in Sandton.

Musk said despite the challenges, these types of tests had proven that EVs could work in South Africa despite its current power challenges.

Below are more photos from Rubicon’s Cape Town-Joburg trip in late February 2023.

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