AUTOMECHANIKA JOHANNESBURG – FUTUROAD LOGISTICS REVIEW
A CEO breakfast for Automechanika South Africa was held recently at Kyalami. It put the local logistics and road freight future in focus as industry big hitters attended the function. They looked to evaluate the prospective growth of local logistics and newly contemplated connected vehicle technology as envisaged in the light and heavy vehicles going forward. Surprisingly, South Africa holds a position of being the fifth largest freight transporter by road delivery methods and unveiled “FutuRoad” puts this R300 billion a year sector in the spotlight.
Despite a small global downturn of around 2% because of geo-political tensions and a considerable degree of government uncertainty, logistics managed to increase its share of the market of road freight by close to 3% in the last year. “R80 billion across the board of exports and local goods was delivered to keep the wheels of industry lubricated,” said Craig Parker, research director of Frost and Sullivan Africa has seen the commercial vehicle aftermarket in some ways become a clear winner, with the systematic failures of PRASA rail systems. The largest individual customer remained the huge mining sector export business player with an estimated value of some R182 billion of turnover last year alone.
Michael Dehn, managing director of Messe Frankfurt SA, outlined the African footprint advance for their expo which will be held on 19-21 November at NASREC in Johannesburg. They recently held road shows into African countries to increase the awareness of the show. The logistics industry remains a resilient automotive sector despite a great degree of wind on its chest. With an expected 25 060 trucks and buses that will be assembled in 2024 in South Africa, the future remains very positive for all concerned. Despite Africa’s dwindling assembly prospects in nations such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s new vision it is set to boost road transport with further infrastructure developments ahead.
Key trends in the vehicle sub-sector exposed new Asian manufacturers entering the local manufacturing scene with expanded assembly forecasts from FAW, Hino and UD Trucks, Mitsubishi Fuso and Isuzu and other players. “All these makers will become subject to structural shifts with new regulations on CV decarbonisation paths ahead as on road CV players strive for a circular value chain to ensure a much higher degree of sustainability,” said Duane Newman, partner EY. He went on to say that it’s a curved road ahead with new regulations and policy targets to decarbonise MHDV transportation and will become quite complex.
Story & pics by Ian Groat
