S.Africa: Massive pylon and electricity collapse in Pretoria: Big blow as Ford factory loses 720 vehicles a day – My Comments

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[The People were stealing and damaging those huge steel pylons that carry electricity. Then there was a huge collapse of these lines. It knocked out power in parts of Pretoria for more than 4 days. One of my pals was without electricity for more than 4 days. I had helped him with some inverters and taught him a few things about batteries. He was so pleased. He told me that he used his generator for only 2 hours per day, and he used his batteries and inverters the rest of the time – plus he had gas for cooking. And he was functioning fine for those 4 days! But, it was a huge outage and it affected the Ford factory. So this is more of the collapse of South Africa!!! As we keep going down down … where the PEOPLE are taking us. People … sponsored by the LIBERALS! Jan]

The collapse of seven pylons on the N4 in Pretoria on Sunday night has shut down a Ford plant, causing an output loss of 720 vehicles a day.

Other businesses, including other manufacturers, as well as residents in large parts of northern and eastern Pretoria, are still without power following the collapse.

Neale Hill, president of Ford Motor Company Africa, told 702’s The Money Show that the plant has already lost a full day of production and that it will continue to be without power for the whole of Wednesday, adding that it’s not clear when power will be restored to the plant.

Ford recently invested almost R16 billion in the plant to ramp up production to 200 000 units a year, and Hill says the loss of power is a "big blow". The plant is one of only three around the world to produce the next-generation Ford Ranger, and it also manufactures the Amarok model under contract for Volkswagen.

The company runs three shifts throughout the day. Hill says it will be very difficult to play catch-up following the outage.

He also told 702 that the Pretoria outage would have a knock-on effect on all of Ford’s suppliers across the country, who will soon run out of storage for manufactured components.

On Monday, City of Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink said that there were clear indications that at least three of the pylons had been vandalised, and that criminality played a role in the collapse.

The pylons are operated by the city, but Eskom will assist in installing new pylons. Brink told 702 on Tuesday evening said that he couldn’t give a "credible timeline" as to when the power will be back.

Source: https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/pretoria-pylon-collapse-big-blow-as-ford-factory-loses-720-vehicles-a-day-20230411