Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) is on track to meet its target to have 120 electric buses on Cape Town roads, by December.
This was the word from Gideon Neethling, company engineer at GABS and chairperson of Southern African Bus Operators Association, Technical Committee.
Neethling spoke at the recent Smarter Mobility Africa 2025 Summit, under the theme: “Shaping the future of transport through technology and collaboration”.
GABS has been testing electric buses in Cape Town since 2020 and first started using electric buses to carry passengers earlier this year, in efforts to reduce its carbon emissions and provide a safer mode of transport for citizens in the mother city.
It currently has 1 200 diesel buses in its fleet and 80 electric buses that are operational across the City of Cape Town. In one week, the electric buses do trips of close to 80 000km combined, with services provided from six depots, explained Neethling.
“We currently have 80 electric buses in our fleet and the next 40 buses have arrived in SA and they will be operational by the end of the year.
“By December, we aim to own 10% of electric buses and by 2026 we will have 80% of our fleet being electrical. From an infrastructure point of view, we have 120KW chargers installed across Cape Town, and each has two dispensers. We are in the process of installing the next batch of 30 chargers. By the end of October to mid-November, we will be able to charge 120 buses at the same time in Cape Town.”
The project, run in partnership with Smart EV, the EV charging division of STS Tech Group, saw the Arrowgate facility kitted out with modern charging technology and renewable energy infrastructure, EV-related hardware, and the security needed to support and secure this new fleet of electric buses.
The 12.5m-long, 65-seater BYD electric buses are equipped with lithium-iron-phosphate batteries and have a range of around 300km.
In this industry, a 1km bus journey produces close to 1kg of carbon, so the introduction of electric brings a big benefit to the environment, Neethling added.
The company own 22 hectares of land in Cape Town and wants to cover it as much as possible with solar roofing.
Discussing the challenges of operating in the local electric bus industry, he noted the limited support from government remains a huge hurdle.
“We’ve heard lots of talk about green finance, but in our experience, there is no such thing as green finance, if your definition is that you get a minor discount when you finance a renewable project. In our case, it’s more expensive to finance electric buses than it is to finance a diesel bus.
“There are also limited or non-existent electric vehicle skills in South Africa, so we have to train our own people,” he noted.
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