Latest news with #R221
The South African
17-05-2025
- General
- The South African
The ONE province with no loadshedding in South Africa
Eskom announced a fresh round of power outages this past week, however, one province with no loadshedding remained. That, of course, is the Western Cape. In fact, even during the height of load reduction back in 2023 (330 days out in the year), the province was regularly able to get away with significantly lower stages than the rest of the country. Now, Eskom has detailed why the province with no loadshedding is able to perform the way it does. And the discrepancy between it and other provinces. Specifically, the state-owned entity cites fewer illegal electricity connections and less theft/vandalism. Joburg areas to have continued power outage in May 2025. Image via Instagram @Eskom_holdings Eskom introduced loadshedding as a system-wide measure when there's insufficient capacity to meet overall electricity demand, says the utility. In so doing, it is able to protect important infrastructural equipment. Therefore preventing more extensive outages – like substation fires, which are common in Gauteng – by temporarily preventing overloading. Moreover, Eskom's group executive Monde Bala, says illegal electricity connections, meter bypassing, theft/vandalism also contributes to overloading the network. Combine that with typically higher consumption during winter, when consumers use heaters and geysers to keep warm, and you have higher chances of loadshedding. 15 Johannesburg suburbs will experience a power outage this month. Image: iStock As you can see from the Eskom graphic (up top), Gauteng is 30% more likely to suffer from loadshedding than Western Cape. Likewise, Limpopo and Mphumalanga are 22% higher. Which is ironic considering this is the heart land of South Africa's coal-fired energy reserves. Meanwhile the province with no loadshedding is working hard to draw energy sustainably and remove itself from the Eskom grid all together. In response, Eskom says it will install 7.2-million 'smart meters' to help reduce losses and enable safer 'loadlimiting' across the country. Provincial Commissioner welcomes copper bust worth about R3 million in Kimberley. Image: SAPS In turn, theft and vandalism remain significant threats to the continuous supply of electricity in South Africa. Between April 2024 and February 2025, Eskom says infrastructure vandalism and theft cost R221 million. Thankfully, this is down from R271 million in the same period stretching from 2023-2024. On average, Gauteng experiences the highest loadshedding – 179 MW . . Mpumalanga ranked second with 132 MW . . Limpopo places third with 103 MW. While the lowest levels are in the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape respectively. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
TimesLIVE
02-05-2025
- Automotive
- TimesLIVE
Carmakers could face up to $12,000 impact per car from tariffs
A Michigan-based economic consulting group said on Thursday carmakers will face a $2,000 (R36,926) to $12,000 (R221,557) tariff impact per vehicle despite the White House moving to soften trade levies on imported car parts. Anderson Economic Group said US assembled vehicles such as Honda's Civic and Odyssey, the Chevy Malibu, Toyota Camry Hybrid, and Ford Explorer faced an impact of $2,000 to $3,000 (R55,391). However, that could rise to as much as $10,000 (R184,637) to $12,000 (R221,557) for imported vehicles, including full-size luxury SUVs, some EVs and other vehicles assembled in Europe and Asia, such as the Mercedes G-Wagon, Land Rover and Range Rover models, some BMW models, and the Ford Mach-E. The Ford Explorer assembled in Chicago previously faced a tariff impact of about $4,300, which will drop to about $2,400 (R44,313), the group estimated, while some Jeep, Ram and Chrysler models from Stellantis could face a $4,000 (R73,825) to $8,000 (R147,650) hit. GM said on Thursday it expected a hit from tariffs of up to $5bn (R92,281,500,000), including $2bn (R36,916,715,800) on vehicles it imports from South Korea. The carmakers did not comment and did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump agreed to give carmakers two years to boost the percentage of domestic components in vehicles assembled in the US. It will allow them to offset tariffs for imported car parts equal to 3.75% of the total value of the manufacturer's suggested retail price of vehicles they build in the US through to April 2026, and 2.5% of US production through to April 2027. Car industry leaders lobbied the administration furiously during the weeks since Trump first unveiled his 25% tariffs on imported vehicles and car parts. The levies, aimed at forcing carmakers to reshore manufacturing domestically, had threatened to upend a North American automotive production network integrated across the US, Canada and Mexico. The White House said the change will not affect the 25% tariffs imposed last month on the eight million vehicles the US imports annually.
