DUBAI, United Arab Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 19, 2025--
Autel Energy, a global leader in smart and sustainable EV charging solutions, today announced its pivotal role in South Africa’s most ambitious electric public transport initiative: the electrification of Cape Town’s bus fleet. Through its advanced MaxiCharger DC Fast (150–240 kW) technology, Autel Energy is powering the country’s largest public EV bus charging hub — also among the most significant in Africa — enabling the rollout of 120 electric buses by December 2025.
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Executives from Autel Energy, STS Tech Group, and Golden Arrow Bus Services celebrate their partnership in delivering South Africa’s largest electric bus charging project in Cape Town.
Cape Town’s Arrowgate Depot, equipped with Autel Energy’s MaxiCharger DC Fast units, powering the city’s growing fleet of electric buses — the largest public EV bus charging hub in South Africa.
Autel Energy’s MaxiCharger DC Fast (150–240 kW), the smart, scalable solution powering South Africa’s largest public EV bus charging depot in Cape Town.
MaxiCharger DC Fast units installed by Autel Energy at Cape Town’s Arrowgate Depot, forming the backbone of South Africa’s largest EV bus charging hub with capacity to expand to 50 chargers and 120 buses by 2025.
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The project, delivered in partnership with STS Tech Group, is centered at Cape Town’s Arrowgate Depot, which operates on a solar–grid hybrid system. This integration highlights Autel Energy’s capability to deliver charging infrastructure that is both renewable-ready and future-proof, ensuring maximum uptime, high efficiency, and long-term sustainability.
Currently, the depot operates with 30 MaxiCharger DC Fast units, with capacity expanding to 50 units by year-end. These chargers support the city’s 68 BYD B12 electric buses already in operation — each carrying 65 passengers with a range of up to 240 km per charge — and will scale to serve 120 buses by the end of 2025. This transition will eliminate an estimated 18,000 tonnes of CO ₂ emissions annually, equivalent to removing more than 4,000 cars from Cape Town’s roads.
Designed for high-traffic public and fleet applications, the MaxiCharger DC Fast offers:
“ Autel has proven itself to be a truly world-class product, combining innovative technology with reliability and performance. What stood out just as much as the product itself was the level of support provided — responsive, professional, and always solution-driven. This combination not only made the project rollout seamless but also gave us complete confidence throughout the process. Autel’s contribution was a key factor in ensuring the success of this project, and we look forward to continuing our partnership, ” said Mike Pritchard, CEO of STS Tech Group.
This landmark project directly supports Cape Town’s clean mobility ambitions and South Africa’s broader sustainability goals, providing citizens with cleaner air, quieter transport, and reliable daily mobility.
“This project in Cape Town is a milestone not only for Africa but for the global transition to clean mobility. At Autel Energy, our mission is to accelerate EV adoption by delivering charging solutions that are intelligent, scalable, and renewable-ready. By enabling seamless integration with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind across our entire charging portfolio, we demonstrate how cities can build future-proof infrastructure that reduces emissions while ensuring reliable public transport. Africa is a strategic region for e-mobility growth, and we are proud to play a central role in shaping its sustainable transport future, ” said Kemin Zuo, Regional director of Autel IMEA DMCC.
As a global provider, Autel Energy’s DC charging solutions span from 50 kW DC fast chargers to 1.44 megawatt-level ultra-fast systems, serving residential, commercial, fleet, and heavy-duty transport applications. With more than 1 million chargers shipped in over 70 countries, Autel Energy continues to deliver the innovation and reliability required to accelerate the world’s transition to clean mobility.
About Autel Energy
Autel Energy is dedicated to providing reliable and intelligent EV charging solutions that accelerate the global transition to clean energy and sustainable mobility. With operations in more than 70 countries and over 1 million chargers shipped worldwide, Autel Energy combines innovation, performance, and smart integration to meet the needs of residential, commercial, and large-scale infrastructure projects.
Our mission is simple: to make EV charging smarter, faster, and more sustainable — supporting the growth of e-mobility and renewable energy adoption across the globe.
Executives from Autel Energy, STS Tech Group, and Golden Arrow Bus Services celebrate their partnership in delivering South Africa’s largest electric bus charging project in Cape Town.
Cape Town’s Arrowgate Depot, equipped with Autel Energy’s MaxiCharger DC Fast units, powering the city’s growing fleet of electric buses — the largest public EV bus charging hub in South Africa.
Autel Energy’s MaxiCharger DC Fast (150–240 kW), the smart, scalable solution powering South Africa’s largest public EV bus charging depot in Cape Town.
MaxiCharger DC Fast units installed by Autel Energy at Cape Town’s Arrowgate Depot, forming the backbone of South Africa’s largest EV bus charging hub with capacity to expand to 50 chargers and 120 buses by 2025.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has arrived at a delicate moment as he weighs whether to order a U.S. military response against the Iranian government as it continues a violent crackdown on protests that have left nearly 600 dead and led to the arrests of thousands across the country.
The U.S. president has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against antigovernment protesters. It's a red line that Trump has said he believes Iran is “starting to cross” and has left him and his national security team weighing “very strong options.”
But the U.S. military — which Trump has warned Tehran is “locked and loaded” — appears, at least for the moment, to have been placed on standby mode as Trump ponders next steps, saying that Iranian officials want to have talks with the White House.
“What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday. “However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.”
Hours later, Trump announced on social media that he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran “effective immediately” — his first action aimed at penalizing Iran for the protest crackdown, and his latest example of using tariffs as a tool to force friends and foes on the global stage to bend to his will.
China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil and Russia are among economies that do business with Tehran. The White House declined to offer further comment or details about the president’s tariff announcement.
The White House has offered scant details on Iran's outreach for talks, but Leavitt confirmed that the president's special envoy Steve Witkoff will be a key player engaging Tehran.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and key White House National Security Council officials began meeting Friday to develop a “suite of options,” from a diplomatic approach to military strikes, to present to Trump in the coming days, according to a U.S. official familiar with the internal administration deliberations. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Trump told reporters Sunday evening that a “meeting is being set up” with Iranian officials but cautioned that “we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting.”
“We’re watching the situation very carefully,” Trump said.
Demonstrations in Iran continue, but analysts say it remains unclear just how long protesters will remain on the street.
An internet blackout imposed by Tehran makes it hard for protesters to understand just how widespread the demonstrations have become, said Vali Nasr, a State Department adviser during the early part of the Obama administration, and now professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University.
“It makes it very difficult for news from one city or pictures from one city to incense or motivate action in another city,” Nasr said. “The protests are leaderless, they're organization-less. They are actually genuine eruptions of popular anger. And without leadership and direction and organization, such protests, not just in Iran, everywhere in the world — it’s very difficult for them to sustain themselves.”
Meanwhile, Trump is dealing with a series of other foreign policy emergencies around the globe.
It's been just over a week since the U.S. military launched a successful raid to arrest Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and remove him from power. The U.S. continues to mass an unusually large number of troops in the Caribbean Sea.
Trump is also focused on trying to get Israel and Hamas onto the second phase of a peace deal in Gaza and broker an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the nearly four-year war in Eastern Europe.
But advocates urging Trump to take strong action against Iran say this moment offers an opportunity to further diminish the theocratic government that's ruled the country since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
The demonstrations are the biggest Iran has seen in years — protests spurred by the collapse of Iranian currency that have morphed into a larger test of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's repressive rule.
Iran, through the country’s parliamentary speaker, has warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if Washington uses force to protect demonstrators.
Some of Trump's hawkish allies in Washington are calling on the president not to miss the opportunity to act decisively against a vulnerable Iranian government that they argue is reeling after last summer's 12-day war with Israel and battered by U.S. strikes in June on key Iranian nuclear sites.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on social media Monday that the moment offers Trump the chance to show that he's serious about enforcing red lines. Graham alluded to former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012 setting a red line on the use of chemical weapons by Syria's Bashar Assad against his own people — only not to follow through with U.S. military action after the then-Syrian leader crossed that line the following year.
“It is not enough to say we stand with the people of Iran,” Graham said. “The only right answer here is that we act decisively to protect protesters in the street — and that we’re not Obama — proving to them we will not tolerate their slaughter without action.”
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another close Trump ally, said the “goal of every Western leader should be to destroy the Iranian dictatorship at this moment of its vulnerability.”
“In a few weeks either the dictatorship will be gone or the Iranian people will have been defeated and suppressed and a campaign to find the ringleaders and kill them will have begun,” Gingrich said in an X post. “There is no middle ground.”
Indeed, Iranian authorities have managed to snuff out rounds of mass protests before, including the “Green Movement” following the disputed election in 2009 and the “woman, life, freedom” protests that broke out after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in custody of the state’s morality police in 2022.
Trump and his national security team have already begun reviewing options for potential military action and he is expected to continue talks with his team this week.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank, said “there is a fast-diminishing value to official statements by the president promising to hold the regime accountable, but then staying on the sidelines.”
Trump, Taleblu noted, has shown a desire to maintain “maximum flexibility rooted in unpredictability” as he deals with adversaries.
“But flexibility should not bleed into a policy of locking in or bailing out an anti-American regime which is on the ropes at home and has a bounty on the president’s head abroad,” he added.
Activists take part in a rally supporting protesters in Iran at Lafayette Park, across from the White House, in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters at the White House, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
