Fashionably 13 years late to the party, Eskom finally opened its first public electric vehicle charging stations: at Gateway Theatre of Shopping in Umhlanga and The Pavilion Shopping Centre in Durban. Each station has two fast DC chargers of up to 120kW and one AC point of up to 22kW. Charging costs R5.88 per kWh on the DC chargers and R4.71 per kWh on AC.

These are Eskom's first public chargers, not South Africa's (our first was back in 2013 already). Private operators already run 455+ public charging sites around the country.

Eskom's price is low for public charging. Its own charging partner GridCars, the country's largest operator, charges R7.35 per kWh for DC charging, including at the charger it already runs at Gateway. A typical EV with a 60kWh battery can go from 20% to 80% in about 35 to 40 minutes on Eskom's DC chargers, if the car supports the full speed. To put the price in context, an efficient small EV uses roughly 15kWh per 100km.

At Eskom's DC rate, that works out to about R88 per 100km, around R71 on its AC chargers and roughly R110 at GridCars' rate. A petrol car using six litres per 100km, at the October inland price of R30.25 a litre for 95 octane, costs about R180 per 100km.

But charging at home on a residential tariff is even cheaper. And the cars are also getting cheaper. The least expensive new EVs in South Africa now cost under R350,000, led by the Geely E2 and BYD Dolphin Surf, down from nearly R800,000 in 2023.

The wider network remains small. Industry estimates put South Africa at roughly 445 public charging sites with about 650 chargers in early 2026, against around 5,000 fuel stations, though with only about 7,000 to 10,000 EVs on the road, the number of chargers per car is already better than the global benchmark of one for every ten EVs.

Eskom itself said in September 2025 it would roll out 55 public charging stations over two years and move its whole fleet to electric by 2035. Thirteen months later, these two are the first to open.

MyBroadband's Hanno Labuschagne reported the launch and the concern among charging operators that Eskom could use its dominant position to undercut competition. MyBroadband has also reported allegations that Eskom offered properties exemptions from, or reductions in, notified maximum demand fees if they installed its chargers, a cost that rival operators must pay. Eskom took three months to respond and did not answer the questions directly.

Cars.co.za tracks the falling price of entry-level EVs, and GreenCape's market report sets out the size of the local charging network.

For drivers, the numbers are straightforward. Even at public fast-charging prices, an EV costs roughly half as much per kilometre to run as a small petrol car, and EVs pay nothing towards the fuel levy or the Road Accident Fund levy. With entry prices now below R350,000, the running-cost argument is starting to matter for ordinary buyers, not only premium ones.

The question is whether Eskom's low price is sustainable and fair. Eskom both sells charging and sets the electricity costs every other operator pays, and if the allegations about waived demand fees are true, it can undercut rivals in a way they cannot match.

That matters because the country needs private operators to keep building: Eskom has opened two of its promised 55 stations in a year, while private companies built most of the existing network. Eskom says final prices will follow tariffs approved by the energy regulator, which have not appeared yet. Until they do, private operators are investing without knowing what they will compete against, at the same time as Eskom is ruling out electricity price cuts for everyone else.

You might also like our piece on the Riddara electric bakkie, electric trucks testing SA's freight routes, and South Africa losing half its refining capacity.

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