Solar-powered truck charging gains ground on South Africa’s freight corridors

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Africa’s freight corridors, long dominated by diesel trucks and constrained by unreliable power grids, are emerging as a new frontier in the global shift toward clean logistics, with solar-powered charging hubs designed specifically for heavy-duty electric trucks.

In Africa, Cape Town-based Zero Carbon Charge, or Charge, is pioneering this technology. It follows global models such as WattEV in California and Milence, a joint venture between Germany’s Daimler Truck and Volvo, which have built solar-powered truck charging hubs to support high-capacity freight charging.

Charge is rolling out two fully off-grid, solar-powered electric vehicle charging stations along South Africa’s busiest freight and passenger corridor between Johannesburg and Durban, following a pilot that successfully fully charged a heavy-duty electric truck using only solar energy.

The rollout along the 570-kilometer (354-mile) N3 highway — a key artery linking the country’s economic hub with its main port — is backed by a $6.2 million equity investment from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA). The funding, announced last July, was conditional on the company building off-grid charging infrastructure every 150 kilometers (90 miles) along national roads.

Charge said the two stations will be completed by June, enabling long-distance EV travel along one of South Africa’s busiest transport routes.

The company's co-founder, Joubert Roux, said the next phase will focus on the N1 corridor connecting Johannesburg and Cape Town, extending off-grid, ultra-fast charging across South Africa’s main long-distance routes.

Each off-grid site costs about $1.25 million.

“This investment allows us to move from pilot projects to full-scale rollouts,” Roux said. “We have proven that it’s possible to fully charge electric trucks using solar energy, and now we are building the infrastructure to do that commercially and reliably.”

Charge successfully demonstrated its capacity to link clean energy with freight transport in January when it simultaneously charged two heavy-duty electric trucks supplied by China's SANY Trucks alongside four passenger EVs.

Other clean transport companies in Africa have mostly focused on electric motorbikes. Companies such as Kenya's Spiro and Ampersand have integrated renewable energy into parts of their battery-swapping infrastructure, particularly outside major cities. However, they are hybrid systems rather than fully off-grid solar networks designed for heavy trucks.

South Africa's imports of EVs have been rising, but charging infrastructure remains limited and largely concentrated in major cities. Heavy-duty electric trucks face additional hurdles due to high energy requirements and a shortage of high-capacity charging sites, even as the national utility struggles to meet demand.

“Our approach is to build energy-resilient charging hubs that are not dependent on an unstable grid,” Roux said. “By combining solar and storage, we can provide predictable, clean power for fleets.”

Roux said adoption of electric freight technology still faces several risks, including regulatory delays for site approvals, high import duties, truck certification requirements and limited vehicle availability.

“Fleet operators are under pressure to decarbonize, but they need commercially viable solutions,” Roux said. “This investment helps us deploy infrastructure for logistics, mining and long-haul transport. We believe this model can reduce emissions while strengthening energy security.”

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FILE -A man rides an electric motorcycle from Ampersand on a test drive in Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)

FILE -Workers offload grains from a truck at the Mile 12 Market in Lagos, Nigeria, Feb. 16, 2024. AP Photo/Mansur Ibrahim, File)

The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate climbed this week to its highest level in nearly a year, driving up borrowing costs for prospective homebuyers.

The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate rose to 6.55% from 6.49% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.75%.

Higher mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power at a time when affordability challenges continue to sideline many aspiring homeowners.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

Rates have been mostly rising this year as the war with Iran has driven crude oil prices sharply higher, stoking expectations of hotter inflation. That's pushed up long-term bond yields relative to where they were before the conflict began in late February, causing mortgage rates to trend higher.

The 10-year Treasury yield was 4.57% at midday Thursday on the bond market, up from 4.54% a week ago. It was just 3.97% in late February, before the war broke out.

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage is now the highest it's been since Aug. 28, when it was at 6.56%. As recently as late February, the average rate dropped slightly below 6% for the first time since late 2022.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also rose this week. That average rate increased to 5.93% from 5.82% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.92%, Freddie Mac said.

A report this week showing prices paid by consumers for gas, clothes and other goods cooled last month could help take pressure off the Federal Reserve, which is considering raising interest rates.

The central bank doesn’t set mortgage rates, but its decisions to raise or lower its short-term rate are watched closely by bond investors and can ultimately affect the yield on 10-year Treasurys.

That cooler inflation reading “is a step in the right direction, but until mortgage rates actually follow suit, buyers will keep feeling the pinch of stubbornly high borrowing costs even as other conditions improve,” said Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com.

While average long-term mortgage rates remain lower than they were at this time last year, their upward trajectory has weighed on home sales this year.

And the latest monthly tally of home purchase transactions that have yet to be finalized points to potentially more sluggish home sales this summer.

Pending U.S. home sales fell 5.4% in June from the previous months and were down 0.3% from June last year, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. There’s usually a month or two lag between a contract signing and when the sale is finalized, which makes pending home sales a near-term bellwether for the housing market.

Data on mortgage applications also signal that the upward trend in mortgage rates has given some would-be homebuyers reason to pause.

Mortgage applications, which include loans to buy a home or refinance an existing mortgage, fell 2.7% last week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The pullback was driven mainly by a 7% drop in applications to buy a home.

FILE - A sign is posted for a new home for sale in Ambler, Pa., Oct. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)