Don’t feel guilty about driving

An “expert” told a webinar this week that when cities across the world start banning combustion engine vehicles, as soon as 2025, these evil, polluting machines could be dumped in South Africa.

Sounds troubling – and possibly it is. Yet the person with the Doomsday prophecy, Kevin Pillay, is chief executive of Siemens Mobility South Africa.

His company specialises in mass transport, like trains and trams. So, it’s not really a surprise he would attack cars. And his comments were made at a webinar hosted by Gautrain – the overpriced, taxpayer-subsidised rapid transit system. Call us gobsmacked.

The elephant in the room on future transport for this country and the rest of Africa is – electricity. We have to generate it mainly from coal-fired power stations … at least for a few decades into the future. And these plants kills more people every year through respiratory diseases than do vehicles.

Future “smart transport” solutions like commuter rail will gobble up even more electricity and put Eskom under even more financial and technical strain than it is now. The moral of the story: combustion engines are going to be around for a long time and don’t let the shills for “smart transport” make you feel guilty about driving.

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