The City of Cape Town has initiated a tender to acquire 30 electric buses for its MyCiTi programme and is exploring the possibility of electrifying other municipal vehicles, including waste collection trucks.
The electric bus tender, issued by the Cape Town Urban Mobility Directorate, will close in mid-July. The city plans to spend 668 million Rand (approximately 34 million euros) on MyCiTi buses over the next three years. This expenditure is part of a larger budget of 6.3 billion Rand (approximately 309 million euros) allocated for the MyCiTi south-east expansion over the same period.
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In addition to the electric bus tender, the city is conducting a feasibility study on the electrification of municipal vehicles such as refuse collection trucks and delivery vehicles. Theresa Uys, the Mayoral Committee Member for Corporate Services, emphasized the city’s commitment to transitioning its vehicle fleet to electric energy as part of its goal to become carbon-neutral by 2050.
Uys mentioned a pilot project with five BMW i3s conducted in 2020 for the Traffic Services Department, noting that while the combustion counterparts were more popular, operational changes rather than vehicle performance influenced the decrease in mileages: “The decrease in mileages were due to operational changes; however, this did not impact the outcome of the pilot.” The report did not explain the fate of the fifth vehicle.
Cape Town’s efforts to electrify its public transport are not new. Last summer, the public transport operator Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) announced plans to procure 60 electric buses per year until its entire fleet of 1,100 diesel buses was electric. The city is also discussing the development of a truck charging network to support electric vehicles in the region.
