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There are several questions surrounding a self-proclaimed Pan-African car manufacturer who says it will start selling a locally-made electric vehicle (EV) in South Africa in 2024.
The company in question — Mureza — describes itself as “Africa’s Flagship Automotive Brand” and has been reported on by several prominent news publications over the past few years.
In addition to South Africa, it has expressed its ambition to sell cars in six other African countries — although this list of countries has also changed frequently over the past few years.
Initially, the news coverage primarily focused on Mureza launching a locally assembled and rebadged version of Iranian carmaker SAIPA’s Quick hatchback.
First unveiled in September 2019, the car was supposed to launch in South Africa and Zimbabwe in 2021.
According to the company, it only managed to deliver 100 units in Zimbabwe.
More recently, Mureza made headlines again, announcing it would offer a 2024 Prim8 sedan made in South Africa in petrol and electric configurations.
MyBroadband has taken a closer look at the company and learned several things about Mureza, which we believe deserve closer scrutiny.
It might have a legitimate intention to offer the EV it is promising.
However, setting up local car manufacturing capabilities and becoming a successful car brand requires vast amounts of capital and industry experience — something which the company has not provided much detail on.
Below, we have summarised some of the key facts surrounding Mureza and its promised cars.
Over R400,000 less than the cheapest EV in SA
The extremely low price of R225,000 for Mureza’s EV is what first drew our attention.
Unless the company has made unprecedented technological advances or plans to make a loss on each car sold, it is selling a pie in the sky.
While Mureza has kept most of the specifications of its electric car under wraps, it did state it would offer 400km of range.
The only generally available battery chemistry capable of delivering this would be lithium-ion.
The country that manufactures the cheapest EVs in the world is China. It benefits from massive economies of scale, vast industrial experience and resources, and low labour costs.
It also has access to many of the materials required to make one of the most expensive components in an EV — the battery — and the capability to refine these materials.
The biggest Chinese EV maker is BYD, and its cheapest model — the Seagull — starts at 73,800 yuan (R192,359). It can only provide 305km of range on its 30.08kWh battery pack.
The cheapest EV currently on sale in South Africa is also from China — the GWM Ora Cat.
Its price starts at R686,950 for an entry-level model with a 48kWh battery pack that can only provide roughly 310km range.
It should be emphasised that this model is not subject to the higher-than-usual import fees for other electric cars, as it is not imported from Europe.
The only car previously on sale in South Africa with a price similar to what Mureza is claiming the Prim8 EV will cost was a quadricycle imported from China.
The Eleksa CityBug launched at R230,000 locally in late 2021.
However, it uses a small lithium-ion phosphate battery with a nominal capacity of 7.2kWh, providing only 100km of range.
Mureza said the reasons for the low cost of its EV were “very simple”.
“We design the vehicle in-house and we use local raw materials. Therefore, our local production cost is 60% less than most global OEMs,” the company said.
“Over the past three years, we have been acquiring strategic pieces of land and getting into partnerships that actually reduce our R&D costs and logistics costs.”
It also said that it owns mineral claims for most of the critical minerals in the battery manufacturing process — lithium, copper, graphite, cobalt, manganese and iron ore.
In a now-removed article on the Entrepreneurial Magazine’s website, the aspiring carmaker’s founder had said the cheapest EV Mureza would cost between $5,000 and $8,000 (R94,700 and R151,500), with a range of up to 800km.
For reference, the only car currently on the market with over 800km range — the Lucid Air — starts at $78,900 (R1.49 million).
Likely AI-generated car designs
Another factor that raised our eyebrows is that many of Mureza’s purported car designs posted on social media appear to be AI-generated.
While the company initially used real-life photos of the Prim8 in its marketing materials, it recently started publishing several computer-generated concept renders.
While it is normal for car manufacturers to do this, these designs are typically hand-crafted by human designers and made to resemble the final product somewhat.
Initially, we did not suspect anything untoward about its concept designs — they seemed rather convincing, albeit a bit basic.
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.
This image immediately aroused suspicion, with several tell-tale signs of AI generation, including non-sensical random text characters slapped onto the cars, as well as misformed and “melting” shapes.
We uploaded the image to two AI image detectors — Optic AI and Huggingface — and both said it was likely AI-generated.
We did the same with the Prim8 renders, which appeared on the Mureza founder’s Twitter profile.
He had also posted images showcasing another hatchback design and scooter he said would be coming to South Africa.
While an AI-generated design could be a good starting point, it is worrisome that it is being used as the basis for a car supposedly launching next year.
MyBroadband queried Mureza about this, and the company said it used AI tools as part of the design process “just like all other car manufacturers.”
“The instructions and base design is actually done in other software [sic] like Solidworks, Blender and Autodesk Fusion 360. AI is just for final rendering,” the company said.
Given the results of the AI generators, as shown below, it would seem more appropriate to use AI for the initial ideas and then perfect them with human designers.
Below are some of the images of Mureza’s “concept” cars that Optic AI and Huggingface determined were likely generated with an AI.
Zero car deliveries in South Africa
The company has repeatedly delayed rollout dates for its cars in South Africa and has not delivered a single model locally.
Mureza told MyBroadband it did open a pre-order facility for the Prim8 in 2021, but it was not aimed at South Africa.
“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”.
“This was successful, and we have since refined our numbers and had no obligation to deliver vehicles in South Africa since there were no customers willing to participate in this trial.”
This claim contradicts a report from News24 in July 2021, which said a press release from the company stated pre-orders would be opened in both South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Its plan to assemble cars from semi-knock-down kits in Rosslyn outside Pretoria also never came to fruition.
There are also differing accounts of exactly how many cars the company has acquired from SAIPA.
Its website states it has 7,000 vehicles in stock, while it previously told BusinessLive it had a stockpile of 6,000 cars.
Six different office addresses in the same city
While not necessarily a guarantee of legitimacy, a physical presence makes a company more reachable and accountable to its investors and customers.
Scam online shops often give themselves away by listing a fake address. It just takes one visit to confirm that they don’t have a presence where they claim.
We found that Mureza had at least six addresses on its online channels and official communication, including:
- 1 Montecasino Boulevard, Fourways — Mureza website and Facebook page on its website, Facebook page
- The Pivot, Block A, Monte Casino, Fourways — WhatsApp Business profile
- 9 Roma Street, Cosmo Business Park, Roodepoort, 2188 — Google directory
- 90 Rivonia Road, Sandton — In an official statement from May 2023 denying it had begun to sell cars in South Africa
- 40 Electron Avenue, Jetworks, Isando — On a picture of one of its cars on Facebook
- 2 Roma Street, Block 2, Cosmo Business Park, Cosmo City — On the CIPC database
While it is not uncommon for businesses to have multiple addresses, the fact that all these locations were in the greater Johannesburg area was strange for a company which claims to operate in seven countries.
The address listed on its WhatsApp Business account was also for one of the well-known hotels at Montecasino.
On a phone call with MyBroadband, one of Mureza’s founders said the company was “deliberately deceiving” the public about its physical location to prevent unsolicited job applicants from showing up at its doors.
In an email clarifying this stance, Mureza said it had suffered many attempts from fraudulent entities and individuals who came to its offices with offers and some intending to derail its progress.
“It is our right to maintain the secrecy of our location as we are not yet ready to entertain any walk-in stakeholders,” it stated.
“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.”
The company did not give names of the other businesses it had supposedly set up at these locations.
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.
Registration solid — but no Naamsa membership
It appears that Mureza has at least done things by the book when it comes to its company registration.
We found six companies registered with Mureza in their name on the Companies and Intellectual Properties database.
Mureza Auto Co, Mureza Merchandise, Mureza Apparel, and Mureza Holdings had Tatenda Mfungo listed as a director.
In a statement released in May 2023, Mureza emphasised that it was a registered car manufacturer. It also provided its registration number.
Provincial Departments of Transport do the registrations of car manufacturers, importers, and builders.
Mureza provided a certificate of registration with registration number F200009580017 as proof that it was indeed registered.
While not compulsory, many legitimate carmakers in South Africa are also members of the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa).
Naamsa confirmed to MyBroadband that Mureza was not registered with it, although that is not a requirement to build cars in South Africa.
However, it is important to note that all of South Africa’s major local passenger car manufacturers are Naamsa members.
Plant construction plans
For manufacturing the Prim8 EV, Mureza told MyBroadband it was in the process of setting up a manufacturing plant in Mogwase in the North West.
“The facility will be on 300 hectares of land with a 25,000 square metre production plant and a 15,000 square metre battery manufacturing plant,” Mureza said.
Mureza said that other key operations at the plant would be a world-class vehicle crash testing facility and test track, a design studio, and a supplier park.
We found the location curious, as a carmaker with export plans would logically prefer to have its plant located near a port.
Setting up a plant would also require some serious capital.
According to Mureza’s website, it has raised over $2.5 million (R47.11 million) in the past three years.
Mureza also told MyBroadband it planned to list on the JSE within the next two years.
While a public listing could bring in extra capital, the timeline of two years would be too long before the plant is meant to be finished.
WhatsApp Business Store
MyBroadband also discovered that the company had a WhatsApp Business account with a store listing several products.
At first glance, this facility appeared to allow people to place orders for the company’s vehicles, merchandise, and a training course for junior car design.
Among the vehicles listed was the Takura, accompanied by an AI-generated image, listed for R600,000. It will supposedly have a hydrogen drivetrain.
Mureza said the WhatsApp Business platform was “private” and that anyone using it would be directed to the “appropriate” communication point.
“If an individual places an order there, we do not process it as we have not advertised this to the public, we engage the individual privately to advise them on the appropriate channel of placing their order,” the company said.
“Pre-orders will be online, and the link will be put on our website and social media platforms for customers to place orders and payments of refundable deposits.”
In the same breath, Mureza said it would not share the number of orders generated because that was private information.
If it had indeed not started taking orders, it is curious that Mureza did not confirm to MyBroadband that it had zero orders on its books.
Now read: South Africans want electric cars — but only if they can do this
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