Two ways to escape South Africa’s high petrol prices

South African motorists concerned over high fuel prices in the country can buy an electric vehicle (EV) or opt to have their car converted to run on liquid petroleum gas (LPG) to escape these fees.

While LPG conversions carry additional kit and installation costs, they offer significant savings over petrol or diesel-powered cars down the line, with inland LPG prices averaging between R12 and R13 per litre.

Following a significant fuel price cut at the start of January 2024, South African motorists have only been hit with increases since.

Unleaded 95 retail prices shot up by R0.75 per litre in February, R1.21 per litre in March, and R0.67 in April.

Factors influencing the prices include Houthi attacks on fuel cargo ships and a weakened rand.

With more increases anticipated in May 2024, there is currently no sign of when South African motorists will get relief from high fuel prices.

MyBroadband compared the cost of buying a petrol car, converting it to run on LPG, and refuelling it for various distances to the price of buying an EV and recharging it to travel on the same routes.

LP Gas conversion

Isinkwe Energies is one of the companies that offers Ergon Equipment and Prins Autogas LPG conversion kits and installations in South Africa.

Having initially launched in KwaZulu-Natal, the company expanded its operations to Gauteng in March 2024.

Managing director at Isinkwe Energies, Kyle Hartley, said the company sells and installs a Prins Silverline VSI conversion kit for multi-point injection cars for R27,500, excluding VAT.

Regarding refuelling costs, South African motorists can expect to pay between R12 and R13 per litre in Gauteng and roughly R1 to R1.50 more on the coast. We used the price of R13 per litre for our calculations.

A commonly converted car model is the Suzuki Dzire, which we used for our calculations. Suzuki sells the Dzire 1.2 GL Automatic for R239,900. The LPG conversion brings the total price to just about R271,525, including VAT.

It is important to note that the conversion slightly changes the combustion figures. Before the conversion, the Suzuki Dzire 1.2 GL Automatic consumed around 4.9 litres of petrol for every 100km of travel.

Hartley previously told MyBroadband that Isinkwe’s services include tuning cars according to customer preferences for economy and performance.

“Our technicians are trained to calibrate and set the system to perform at the same levels as when the vehicle is running on petrol,” he said.

“Based on this, a vehicle can run up to 10% richer on LPG — requiring 0–10% more LPG than petrol to achieve the same range.”

Therefore, we used a consumption figure of 4.9ℓ/100km plus roughly 10%, which works out to 5.39ℓ/100km.

An added benefit of these systems is that they essentially make the car a bi-fuel vehicle.

If, for some reason, the driver runs out of LPG, the car can return to running on petrol.

The table below summarises approximate refilling costs for motorists who drive 250km to 3,000km per month.

We have included approximate costs to refuel a non-converted car with unleaded 95 based on the claimed 4.9ℓ/100km consumption figure for comparison purposes.

Going electric

Going electric has a far greater starting cost, with the most affordable EV in South Africa — the GWM Ora 03 — starting at R686,950.

MyBroadband calculated how much motorists would pay on charging in a month of travelling up to 3,000km, using GridCars charging station pricing and household electricity tariffs when charging at home.

According to the manufacturer, the GWM Ora 03 consumes 16.7kWh per 100km on average. It should be noted that the figure will likely be higher for highway driving.

Electric cars are generally efficient when it comes to low-speed town driving. However, their travel range tends to drop significantly at highway speeds, because they are unable to make as frequent use of regenerative braking.

Those who charge exclusively using GridCars charging stations won’t save much over driving the same distances in a petrol-powered car.

GridCars charges R7.35 per kWh, working out to roughly R1,227 per month for those who drive 1,000km monthly.

With the non-converted Suzuki Dzire, the petrol to cover the same distance would only cost R3 more.

However, charging at home is significantly more affordable, with household customers in Johannesburg paying roughly R2.80 per kWh and those in Cape Town paying R3.76 per kWh when consuming around 900kWh per month.

At these rates, the running costs of an EV will be significantly lower than the petrol-powered and LPG-converted Suzuki Dzire.

However, it could take several years for these savings to offset the high once-off price of buying an EV, depending on what petrol-powered model would be a good match.

One should not compare the Ora’s buying price with the Dzire, as the former’s specifications and power put it in an altogether different quality class.

Petrol-powered equivalents of the Ora include the Audi A1, BMW 1-series, and Mini Cooper John Cooper Works, which are also in the same price segment as the Ora.

The table below compares recharging costs using household electricity and charging stations to travel monthly distances from 250km to 3,000km.

As general electricity tariffs vary per province, we used Cape Town’s price of R3.76 per kWh as the worst-case scenario and R2.80 per kWh as the best case.