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Ford South Africa’s (Ford SA’s) Silverton plant, in Pretoria, this month produced its 500 000th Ranger for the export market.

This year is the current Ranger’s tenth anniversary, with the new model to be launched next year.

Exports of locally assembled Ford Rangers started in 2000 for the previous-generation model, but it was the 2009 announcement of a R3.4-billion investment in Ford’s local operations that transformed the Silverton plant into a high-volume operation.

This export-driven investment programme also included the Struandale engine plant, in Gqeberha, which started production of the 3.2 and 2.2-litre Duratorq TDCi engines and components for domestic assembly, and for exports to other Ford plants around the world.

The then new Ranger was launched in South Africa in October, 2011, and has become the country’s number one light commercial vehicle (LCV) export.

By virtue of its local vehicle operations, Ford SA currently employs around 4 300 people, and supports approximately 50 000 jobs in the total value chain. More jobs are on the cards as a result of a fresh $1.05-billion investment announced in February for the production of the next-generation Ranger.

“Achieving 500 000 exports for Ranger is a fantastic milestone for the South African team,” says Ford SA operations VP Ockert Berry.

“The investment and subsequent launch of the current Ranger in 2011 transformed our manufacturing operations, and put South Africa firmly on the map as a high-volume single-platform manufacturer for Ranger, both for the domestic market and, crucially, for exports to more than 100 global markets, including Europe where Ranger is now the top-selling pickup.

“Although the milestone 500 000 exports extends from 2000 to 2021, the start of the new Ranger export programme in 2011 took our manufacturing operations to new heights,” says Berry .

“We went from a total export volume of around 16 500 units of the previous Ranger between 2000 and 2011, to just shy of half a million units of the current model between 2011 and 2021.”

Ford’s legacy in South Africa dates back to 1923, with the establishment of the country’s first motor vehicle assembly plant in Gqeberha, in a converted wool store, with the capacity to assemble ten vehicles a day.

A new World Bank report warns that sub-Saharan African could make up 86-million of the world’s 216-million climate migrants by 2050, while North Africa could have the largest share of internal climate migrants relative to total population.

Titled ‘Groundswell’, the report updates and expands on modelling contained in a 2018 report by the same name.

That report warned that climate change could lead 143-million people in three regions of the world (South Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa) to migrate within their own countries.

The updated report includes three more regions (East Asia and the Pacific, North Africa and Eastern Europe and Central Asia) and states that, absent immediate and concerted action, “hotspots” of internal climate migration could emerge as early as 2030 and continue to spread and intensify by 2050.

Of the six regions examined in the two reports, sub-Saharan Africa is projected to have the largest number of internal climate migrants.

“The region is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, especially in already fragile drylands and along exposed coastlines. Agriculture, which is almost all rainfed in the region, also accounts for a large share of employment.”

Internal migration in North Africa, meanwhile, is projected to affect 19-million people by 2050, or 9% of the total population.

“This is due to a great extent to severe water scarcity, as well as the impacts of sea-level rise on densely populated coastal areas and in the Nile Delta.”

Climate change, the reports states, is a powerful driver of internal migration because of its impacts on people’s livelihoods and loss of livability in highly exposed locations.

Hotspots of internal climate migration will intensify in rural, urban, and coastal systems and people will migrate due to water scarcity, lower crop productivity, sea level rise and storm surges.

Some places may also become less livable, owing to heat stress, extreme events and land loss.

The report argues that four policy recommendations, if acted on immediately, could reduce the scale of climate migration by as much as 80%. The recommendations include:

reducing global emissions and making every effort to meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement;

embedding internal climate migration in far-sighted green, resilient, and inclusive development planning;

preparing for each phase of migration, so that internal climate migration as an adaptation strategy can result in positive development outcomes; and

investing in better understanding of the drivers of internal climate migration to inform well-targeted policies.

““The Groundswell report is a stark reminder of the human toll of climate change, particularly on the world’s poorest – those who are contributing the least to its causes. It also clearly lays out a path for countries to address some of the key factors that are causing climate-driven migration,” World Bank sustainable development VP Juergen Voegele said.

A global coalition set up to support countries in implementing the carbon-reduction pledges contained in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) has announced that it will fund a study to assess the socioeconomic impacts of the shutdown, repowering and repurposing of seven Eskom coal-fired power stations.

Following a request for assistance from South Africa’s Department of Fisheries, Forestry and the Environment, the NDC Partnership has launched a request for proposal (RFP) for the study, which it says will offer “support for South Africa’s just energy transition”.

“In partnership with Eskom, the NDC Partnership through its host, the World Resources Institute, intends to award a contract to develop social plans for the seven selected coal power stations identified for shutdown in the coming years,” the global coalition said in a statement.

South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan of 2019 contains an allocation for the decommissioning of 11 000 MW by 2030 and Eskom has established a Just Energy Transition Office that aims to pursue repowering and repurposing projects at the power station sites to help cushion workers, communities and businesses that will be negatively affected by the closures.

Despite being heavily indebted, the State-owned utility is also hoping to convince the National Treasury to support the raising of concessional climate finance to help it implement the transition, including by investing some R106-billion on new solar and wind projects mostly at the power station sites.

The NDC Partnership says bids in response to the RFP should be submitted by September 30 and the study, which is expected to cost $2.1-million, is expected to begin in October and be completed in 15 months, ending in December 2022.

“The selected vendor will lead a consortium of expert international and local consultant firms to conduct the study,” the NDC Partnership reports, adding that, in light of Covid restrictions, the consortium should include strong local expertise.

RFP responses should be sent, in electronic format, by 17:00 (EDT) on September 30 to NDC Partnership Support Unit regional manager for Anglophone Africa Margaret Barihaihi ([email protected]) or NDC Partnership Support Unit senior country engagement specialist John Heermans ([email protected]).

Following the resumption of scheduled flight operations on September 1, Comair reached another milestone in the business rescue process with capital inflows of R270-million.

Flights were resumed at the start of this month after a temporary suspension as a result of Level 3 Covid-19 travel restrictions.

The capital inflows follow the sale of Comair’s SLOW Lounge business to FirstRand Bank for R250-million and the receipt of a R20-million payment from South African Airways (SAA).

The SLOW Lounge transaction will require an amendment to the business rescue plan, a notice of which has been dispatched to affected persons.

The R20-million distribution from SAA’s business rescue practitioners is part of the R1.1-billion the State-owned enterprise owed Comair in settlement of a damages award for past anticompetitive behaviour.

SAA paid an initial amount of R289-million in February 2019, with the balance payable in instalments until July 2022.

These payments ceased when SAA entered business rescue in December 2019.

Richard Ferguson, one of Comair’s business rescue practitioners, says the capital injection is a significant step towards the successful conclusion of the business rescue process.

“There is still work to be done but these capital inflows, the fact that Comair is back in the skies and again earning revenue, coupled with the commitment by the investors to support the viability and sustainability of the business, all point to a positive outcome.”

Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) has announced that co-CEO and Mercedes-Benz Cars executive director Johannes Fritz will be moving back to Germany to head up Mercedes-Benz Cars and Vans in Bavaria, one of the largest sales regions in the German market.

“Fritz, who spent four years in South Africa, believes firmly that the brand’s biggest differentiators in a highly competitive market is an innovative retail experience, an unwavering focus on customer care and a strong partnership with its agent partners,” says MBSA.

Fritz will be succeeded by Mark Raine, who is currently product and marketing VP at Mercedes-Benz Cars in Korea.

The move is something of a homecoming for Raine, who grew up in Pretoria before joining Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart in 2002.

“Raine has played a key role in driving the company’s digital transformation and further enhancing its brand value in the Korean market, while working to reduce complexity and improve the product portfolio,” notes MBSA.

Raine previously worked in the company’s Middle East operation, before heading up marketing and sales for Mercedes-Benz in Malaysia.

One of Raine’s main strategic objectives will be the successful introduction of the Mercedes-EQ electric vehicle range into the South African market from the first quarter of next year onwards.

“To further drive the future-orientated transformation, essential strategic imperatives also include the pursuit of sustainable sales growth by enhancing the digital e-commerce journey of Mercedes-Benz and its retail partners,” says MBSA.

Engineering News Senior Deputy Editor Irma Venter tells Creamer Media's Chanel de Bruyn about the progress Ford South Africa is making at its Pretoria plant in preparation for the start of production of the next-generation Ranger bakkie, as well as about how German car manufacturer BMW has prioritised production at its South African plant, in Rosslyn, as the global semi-conductor (computer chip) shortage continues to impact on vehicle manufacturers across the world. She also gives some insight into what South Africa needs to do to successfully participate in the global battery supply chain for battery electric and hybrid vehicles.

Bell Equipment will launch its first autonomous articulated dump truck (ADT) on the global market next year, says Bell Equipment CEO Leon Goosen.

The truck will also be available in South Africa.

The truck is the standard Bell ADT product which is then transformed into an autonomous product through add-ons from Bell and its regional partner companies.

Goosen tells Engineering News Online that the term ‘autonomous’ does not mean that the truck thinks for itself.

Customers, such as mining companies, will still have to programme the vehicle to perform its duties according to their operational demands.

“The truck wouldn’t know what to load where. Somebody would have to tell it what to do. You would have to programme the truck, and only then would it be able to perform the tasks without an operator.”

Bell’s autonomous ADT makes its debut in the US this month, at MINEXPO 2021 in Las Vegas.

In the US, Bell Equipment Engineering Research and Development and Pronto AI have been working for around 18 months to engineer and refine Pronto AI’s own developed hardware and software to produce and prove a self-drive Bell ADT.

Bell Trucks America provided a brand-new B50E as a test unit to Pronto AI in November last year.

This unit has been operating on several mine sites on the American west coast, allowing Pronto and Bell the time and experience to get the product to where it is today, which is self-driving on a mine site through full load and haul cycles over and over again.

Autonomy is achieved by marrying Pronto AI’s plug-and-play hardware and software with the autonomous-ready platform of the Bell ADT. The result is a fully autonomous standard Bell ADT, able to operate through the load, haul and dump cycle without an operator.

Bell is aiming for the truck to be the most affordable autonomous ADT in the world.

The JSE-listed Bell Equipment group also recently launched the Bell tracked carrier, with this product only available in the northern hemisphere, where it is able to operate in harsh conditions such as snow and mud.

These carriers are geared for the short haul and able to provide a niche solution to the pipelaying industry. They are, however, also used as people carriers on ski slopes or as flat-deck goods carriers, for example.

The tracked carrier has been extremely well received with almost all the units that have landed in the US sold, says Goosen.

The product is manufactured at the Bell plant in Richards Bay, KwaZulu-Natal.

“We are busy developing another two new products which should be on the market in the next two to three years,” notes Goosen.

“We aim to be global market leaders. We have the know-how and the ability in South Africa to compete with the world’s best.”

The Bell Equipment group this week announced its financial results for the six months ended June 30.

The group recorded profit after tax of R176-million, compared with a R52-million loss in the same period last year.

Revenue was up 25%, to R3.84-billion.

The group’s solid performance is largely owing to increased production volumes at the South African and German factories, as well as more sustainable sales volumes on the back of stronger global markets and a stabilised product range following major product upgrades, says Goosen.

The South African (SA) Plastics Pact members have published a first list of problematic or unnecessary plastics for phasing out this year and next.

The SA Plastics Pact is a collaborative pre-competitive initiative that brings together key stakeholders from the local plastics value chain, including businesses, the South African government, producer responsibility organisations (PROs), nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and other key players to tackle plastic waste and pollution at its source.

The SA Plastics Pact members have set specific, ambitious and time-bound targets (end 2025) to address the country’s design, production, use, recovery and recycling of plastic packaging, including primary, secondary and tertiary formats.

The targets are to take action on problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging through elimination, redesign, innovation or alternative (re-use) delivery models; for 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025; for 70% of plastic packaging to be effectively recycled; and that there is a 30% average recycled content across all plastic packaging.

The publication of the Phase 1 list of problematic or unnecessary plastics, titled ‘Addressing problematic or unnecessary plastics’ represents a significant milestone in the progress towards Target 1 of the SA Plastics Pact, the organization said in a statement on September 9.

The publication defines “unnecessary plastic” as “plastic items that can be avoided (or replaced by a reuse model) while maintaining utility. They have limited social utility, for which no alternative is required, and which can be phased out without significant behavioural or infrastructural change”.

It also defines problematic plastic as having characteristics such as that those plastics: are not reusable, recyclable (technically and/or economically not recyclable) or compostable; contain, or which manufacturing process requires, hazardous chemicals that pose a significant risk to human health or the environment; hinder or disrupt the recyclability or compostability of other items; and have a high likelihood of being littered or ending up in the natural environment.

The publication lists the first group of plastics which members have pledged to phase out in 2021 and 2022. These include oxo-degradable plastics, polyvinylchloride (PVC) bottles, pallet wrap, and labels - PVC or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) shrink sleeves - on PET bottles, and plastic stickers on fruit and vegetables, besides others.

“The publication of this list of problematic and unnecessary plastics is a significant moment for the SA Plastics Pact. It shows what can be achieved through the focused collaborative action fostered by Plastics Pact,” said British-registered charity Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) international programmes head David Rogers.

He added that, in the UK, Plastics Pact members have made significant progress working towards eliminating the initial target list of eight problematic and unnecessary items, which has resulted in a 40% reduction in these plastics since 2018.

“We are continuing this work by identifying further items for elimination this year. We at Wrap look forward to continuing to work with GreenCape and the SA Plastics Pact signatories and supporters to drive progress towards a circular economy for plastics in South Africa,” Rogers noted.

In publishing this Phase 1 list of problematic and unnecessary plastics, the SA Plastics Pact has become the fourth international pact to do so, joining the UK Plastics Pact, the Chilean Plastics Pact and the Portuguese Plastics Pact.

The publication also lists items identified for inclusion in a Phase 2 list, which is to be published in due course.

Research institute the Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s (GCRO’s) Quality of Life (QoL) Survey for 2020/21 finds that the quality of life in the province decreased considerably since the previous study; however, this must be understood in the context of the pandemic.

The GCRO is a partnership between the Gauteng provincial government, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Johannesburg and organised local government in Gauteng.

The GCRO has run the QoL survey every two years since 2009.

The latest survey, the sixth iteration, was launched during a virtual event on September 9. The theme of this survey’s launch is the ‘Human side of the Data’.

These results provide new insight into the overall wellbeing and quality of life of residents of Gauteng in late 2020 and early 2021. The GCRO defines quality of life broadly and looks below the surface of how Gauteng residents live, to understand their experiences, perceptions and challenges.

The findings cover a range of components shaping overall quality of life, including the direct impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, economic and psychosocial conditions, socio-political attitudes and beliefs and satisfaction with government.

It considers living conditions, socioeconomic circumstances, self-reported health and well-being, psychosocial attitudes and beliefs about and perceptions of government, service delivery and local challenges.

“There is no doubt that 2020 and 2021 will go down in the history of the world as an extraordinary period. The results of the survey reflect the mood of a city-region confronted by a new, uncertain and challenging social and economic reality brought about by the pandemic,” GCRO executive director Rashid Seedat said during the launch.

The final QoL 2020/21 dataset records the lived experiences of 13 616 of Gauteng’s residents. Seedat highlighted that this meant that it covers a wide sample range of the province’s population.

Participants were randomly sampled in each ward of the province, which includes 529 wards with at least 20 interviews in each. Data was collected by a team of dedicated fieldworkers from October 2020 to May the year.

Starting just five months after the country’s hard lockdown in March 2020, data collection spanned the second peak of Covid-19 infections early in the year and varying levels of lockdown.

The QoL 2020/21 Survey balanced questions used in previous survey iterations with new content. New content included the impact of Covid-19, social mobility and experiences of violence. The project explored the quality of life for Gauteng residents across 12 major themes.

The findings show an overall QoL Index score of 61 out of 100. This represents a substantial decline from 64 out of 100 in the previous survey, conducted in 2017/18.

Other key findings from the survey include that the economic impacts of the pandemic are extreme, with many respondents reporting a reduction in salaries and working hours, as well as job losses.

Grants and social support, however, have provided some crucial protection to the most vulnerable.

However, in general, the most advantaged have experienced the least economic fallout, while black African respondents and those with lower levels of education have been hit hardest. The pandemic appears to have driven lower-income households into poverty, the survey indicates.

Moreover, it finds that inequality between income groups remains significant, which has had considerable socioeconomic impacts. Also, the steady decrease in poverty levels over time has been reversed, which was highlighted as concerning, as several years of progress have been erased.

Moreover, in terms of the social fabric, the data shows evidence of substantial, and growing, psycho-social distress.

Levels of crime are high, and issues of safety and security are of great concern to residents. While there was some decrease in crime levels, the perception of crime levels did not decrease, it was indicated during the launch.

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The current global semi-conductor (computer chip) shortage has not significantly impacted operations at the BMW plant in Rosslyn, Pretoria, as production at the facility is being prioritised within the German car maker’s larger manufacturing network.

“At BMW we are managing quite well [with the shortage],” says BMW management board member for production Dr Milan Nedeljkovic.

“We have high flexibility in our production system. We are capable of rescheduling our whole production set-up six days in advance. So, six days in advance we can change our whole sequence of production and shuffle it around.”

This helps the premium car manufacturer when it becomes aware that certain components or accessories will not be delivered on time.

“We can then resequence the whole production line and avoid this component as far as possible,” explains Nedeljkovic.

“This has helped us significantly to maintain production irrespective of the semi-conductor shortage.

“Of course, we had to shut down some production, but we are manoeuvering around quite well.

“However, with South Africa, with its long supply chains, we don’t have this flexibility, so we are trying to secure production by just prioritising manufacturing in South Africa,” notes Nedeljkovic.

BMW Group South Africa produces the X3 for the local and exports markets.

Nedeljkovic explains that the global semi-conductor shortage has, in part, arisen from the continuous increase in demand from the automotive industry for components that require computer chips.

“We are putting more and more electronics into cars, especially through driving assistance systems. There are additional cameras, sensors and computers to calculate and analyse data.”

Nedeljkovic says the rise in the complexity of the single vehicle had already caused “a certain tension” in the supply chain before the advent of Covid-19.

Now there is the added tension of a "surprisingly quick recovery" from the pandemic, so much so that entire supply chains are struggling to keep up with demand.

“This recovery is challenging the semi-conductor industry significantly,” says Nedeljkovic.

“And, on top of this, we now have some countries with additional lockdowns.”

He says Covid-19-related lockdowns in Asia, in countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam, are hitting the automotive industry “very badly”, since the supply pipeline was “already quite empty”.

Yet another added complexity is that the ‘missing’ components within the supply chain may vary from week to week, depending on which country is facing a lockdown at that stage.

“It changes from week to week, month to month which component, which semi-conductor manufacturer, is affected. And, in the end, we need all the components to manufacture a car and that is the difficulty behind it.”