The BRICS summit took place in South Africa recently. BRICS is a collaboration between five prominent emerging markets and developing countries, established on the basis of strong historical ties, unity, and common interests. The mentioned countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, collectively make up 42% of the world’s population, 30% of its land area, 23% of its GDP, and 18% of its global trade.
These kind of summit required extensive logistical planning. A large portion of these operations involve providing shuttle services to transport delegates to and from their accommodations, conference locations, and other related events.
As the shift towards electric transportation becomes more widespread, we are witnessing an increase in events that are including electric vehicles as part of their official fleet for delegates.
In fact, some events are going a step further and primarily using electric vehicles in their fleet for example ASEAN Summit 2023. A total of 395 electric cars, which included 13 BMW iX, Toyota bZ4X, and Hyundai IONIQ 5, as well as 50 Wuling EVs and 90 US-made Zero electric motorcycles.
Clean-Future had high expectations for the BRICS summit in South Africa and were eager to know which vehicles would be chosen as official transportation for delegates. However, we were disappointed to learn that all of the vehicles selected were traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
The BRICS summit organizers missed out on an opportunity to showcase a variety of electric vehicle models available in South Africa. They could have collaborated with global suppliers to add these vehicles to their fleet for the conference.
Additionally, they failed to showcase electric vehicles from BRICS member states. From India they could have pushed to get some vehicles from the market leader, TATA. Since India drives on the same side of the road as South Africa.
The absence of significant publicity for electric vehicles at the recent summit was a missed opportunity. Hopefully, the next summit in South Africa will be more successful in promoting them.
Reference- Clean Technica, Inside EVs, Electrek, BRICS Summit Website