Safety Training for Audi | Audi South Africa

Audi progresses electric vehicle safety training for South African First Responders

Audi South Africa today concluded the facilitation of a training programme with 70 South African First Responders hosted at their Dealer Training Academy in Pretoria. The safety and education initiative is the first for the local automotive industry and is part of Audi’s e-tron launch and electric vehicle roll out in the country.<br><br>“As part of our planning towards the introduction of our fully electric Audi e-tron model range, we consulted with the Department of Cooperative Governance and the National Disaster Management Centre in South Africa and identified a need to progress the education and information of electric vehicles (EV) to First Responders. These individuals, like paramedics and fire services play a vital role towards the safety and security of South African drivers and with the growing transition towards e-mobility, there was definitely an important responsibility on our part to bring these teams along our local EV transition or journey,” explains Sascha Sauer, Head of Audi South Africa.

“With the arrival of more and more electric vehicles on our roads and across the country, the training of this nature was invaluable to our First Responder teams. It is great to see that the future of automotive is taking place in South Africa and that our teams are seen as an important stakeholder within this new era. Thank you to Audi to exposing us to this new topic,” says, Acting Director of Fire Services, Thibedi Jappie Lengoabala.

“With the arrival of more and more electric vehicles on our roads and across the country, the training of this nature was invaluable to our First Responder teams. It is great to see that the future of automotive is taking place in South Africa and that our teams are seen as an important stakeholder within this new era. Thank you to Audi to exposing us to this new topic,” says, Acting Director of Fire Services, Thibedi Jappie Lengoabala. <br><br>“EV’s are increasing in popularity and will have an extensive presence on our roads within the next five years. While EV’s will present new and unique challenges to our emergency services, there are effective ways to ensure safe and operative responses to any EV related incident. Skilled and qualified personnel is key to all of this. Audi is proud to start the educational training process with our National Fire and Emergency Services teams, helping to keep them and South Africans safe on the roads. Understanding the basic EV construction and technicalities will empower emergency and fire services to react with confidence while saving lives, but also limiting as much damage as possible to the vehicle,” concludes Sauer.