South African businessman, Kobus Meiring, is making a
name for himself as a pioneer in the motor vehicle manufacturing sector, using
alternative technology.
The Paarl-born mechanical engineer co-founded Optimal
Energy in 2005, with Mike Lomberg, Jian Swiegers and Gerhard Swart, with the
vision of leading the revolution in sustainable mobility through “imagineering
optimal electric vehicle product solutions”.
Optimal Energy has produced South Africa’s first
electric car, known as the Joule, designed for urban transport and minimal
energy wastage.
The privately owned company was started with an
investment from the Innovation Fund under the auspices of the Department of
Science and Technology and Meiring brings years of managing scientific projects
to his role as CEO, overseeing a rapidly expanding staff compliment of more
than 70.
After matriculating from Paarl Boys’ High, Meiring,
the youngest of three children, followed one of his childhood dreams – to
become an engineer – completing his degree in mechanical engineering at the
University of Stellenbosch.
He selected engineering over his other childhood dreams
because the maturing Meiring viewed architecture as too arty and flying as too
militaristic.
In his first job, Meiring, managed to combine his
passion for flying and hobbyist interest in model aeroplanes with his work by
securing a research and development position at Denel Aviation in 1988,
focusing on aerodynamics and composites.
Two years later, Meiring who looks up to Richard
Branson and Anton Rupert as role models, joined Denel’s Rooivalk helicopter and
ACE turbo-prop programmes, managing the on-board systems development for both
projects.
He worked himself up to manager of the Rooivalk
Development Department in 1996 and Rooivalk Programme Manager in 1997.
The first of these specialist Rooivalk helicopters
came off the production line in 1999 and have been in used by the South African
Air Force 16 Squadron ever since.
Meiring, a lover classical music and jazz, moved to
his current home town, Cape Town, and was appointed project manager of the
Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) project.
He ensured that SALT was completed within budget and on
deadline for inaugurations in 2005.
As head of Optimal Energy, Meiring, who has been
married for 20 years, enjoys the varied nature of his work. “Every day brings
new challenges; technical, commercial, marketing, distribution… and every aspect of the automotive industry
get challenged in the process of establishing this new technology here in South
Africa,” says Meiring.
He says that managing the Rooivalk programme until
1999 and then the SALT project - both big multidisciplinary projects done with
very strict boundary conditions and using both local and overseas skills and suppliers
- was excellent preparation for his role at Optimal Energy.
Driven to achieve Optimal Energy’s goal to establish
the lead electric vehicle in South Africa and expand globally, Meiring, now 44,
has a pragmatic management style. His preference is to: “Start with the big
picture and the end goal in mind and always stay aligned to that. Surround
yourself with the best people you can afford an encourage diversity.”
An avid reader with a varied taste in books from
biographies to business to serious fiction, Meiring sees Optimal Energy as
playing an important role as regards global warming: “Global warming is much
more serious and more urgent than is generally perceived, even with all the
publicity its getting.”
Meiring believes that the only way to get people to
change their behaviour is to make it financially attractive to change, or to
implement legislation – and suggests that both these measures should be implemented
at government level in South Africa.
“Global warming is too serious to be handled in normal
commercial ways or timescales,” he says, adding that government interventions
would force companies to look at different ways of doing business and that the
electric vehicle industry will be influenced positively and can cite numerous
examples of where this has taken place overseas.
Meiring has just finished reading JS Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Mini: The True and Secret History of the
Making of a Motor Car by J Garfield.
Despite the global financial crisis and it’s large
effect on the global and domestic motor vehicle manufacturing industry Meiring
is upbeat about the opportunities this creates for growth and change.
The global financial crisis is creating opportunities
in all industries, but especially the automotive industry – something nobody
would have guessed five years ago, says the father of father of three sons and
one daughter.
Meiring says some automotive giants are fading,
thereby creating space for start-up automotive businesses “to do things
specifically aimed at new technologies, without being hampered by huge legacy
investments.”
Given
that the world’s finite energy resources are being used inefficiently and that
urban transport plays a major role in energy wastage and climate changing
pollution Meiring hopes, through Optimal Energy, to produce a zero emission
transport solution with the highest wheel-to-wheel efficiency and minimal
lifecycle footprint.
