KOBUS MEIRING

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.