There are several questions surrounding a self-proclaimed Pan-African car manufacturer who says it will start selling a locally-made electric vehicle in South Africa in 2024.
First unveiled in September 2019, the car was supposed to launch in South Africa and Zimbabwe in 2021.More recently, Mureza made headlines again, announcing it would offer a 2024 Prim8 sedan made in South Africa in petrol and electric configurations. The biggest Chinese EV maker is BYD, and its cheapest model — the Seagull — starts at 73,800 yuan . It can only provide 305km of range on its 30.08kWh battery pack.Its price starts at R686,950 for an entry-level model with a 48kWh battery pack that can only provide roughly 310km range.
For reference, the only car currently on the market with over 800km range — the Lucid Air — starts at $78,900 .Another factor that raised our eyebrows is that many of Mureza’s purported car designs posted on social media appear to be AI-generated. However, when responding to MyBroadband’s questions, Mureza sent us a picture of a bakkie which had not yet been featured in any of its materials shared with the public.
“The instructions and base design is actually done in other software like Solidworks, Blender and Autodesk Fusion 360. AI is just for final rendering,” the company said. “Our key market at the time was Zimbabwe,” the company said. “Our objective was to assess the shipping and understand the taxes applicable to our vehicles”.
While not necessarily a guarantee of legitimacy, a physical presence makes a company more reachable and accountable to its investors and customers. The address listed on its WhatsApp Business account was also for one of the well-known hotels at Montecasino. “For the record, we just set up other business operations at these addresses, and we still have members of our teams in those addresses, so we are still operating from there with no interference.”MyBroadband offered to meet Mureza at one of its undisclosed offices and gave our word not to share this with the public, but the company refused to entertain this proposition.
In a statement released in May 2023, Mureza emphasised that it was a registered car manufacturer. It also provided its registration number.