Drive Electric plug-in fleet day targets corporate fleets

Drive Electric, formerly known as APEV (the Association for the Promotion of Electric Vehicles) held a plug-in fleet day in Auckland to encourage large and corporate fleet buyers to consider placing fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles on their shopping list in the next three years.

People attending the fleet day had the opportunity to drive a fully-electric Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 as well as a plug-in hybrid Audi A3 e-tron, and the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV electric vehicle.

The chairman of Drive Electric, Mark Gilbert, says while electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are not the answer to all fleet issues, the issue of range for many is not an issue.

Keynote speaker, City of Sydney manager of strategy and assets Chris Binns, told the assembled guests that he was impressed by New Zealand having a renewable power generation figure of 80% rather than the coal fired power that is available in Australia.

He outlined the pool vehicle strategy which has been employed by the City of Sydney since 2009 to reduce its carbon emissions and also showed how the municipality had placed solar panels on it’s buildings to generate power to offset the power used to charge the vehicles overnight.

Binns says in the five years that the City of Sydney has been using electric vehicles such as the Mitsubishi i-Miev and the Nissan Leaf as pool cars for staff to use during the working day, not one had been damaged, unlike other vehicles which were often damaged in parking buildings.

Christchurch City Council manager of property Angus Smith says three electric vehicles have been trialled by the local body since 2013, two Mitsubishi i-Miev cars and a Nissan Leaf.

Everyone who drives the Leaf loves it as its quite different to the Holden Barina and Toyota Yaris vehicles we have within the council pool.

We are considering how we can electrify a larger part of our fleet but the issue for us is the initial purchase price of these vehicles.

Tegel Foods procurement manager Phillip Lonsdale told AutoTalk that he came to the Drive Electric function to see if the vehicles were suited to the needs of his organisation’s fleet.

We lease all of our vehicles , so sustainability, and cost reduction are all part of the equation but the commercial reality is that the total cost of ownership of a vehicle must add up for a fleet buyer, says Lonsdale.

Its a big call for a lease company to take on such a new technology when the residuals are unknown and a 100km range seems light to me, it might suit some of our drivers on some days but on other days we might need more, so a plug-in rather than a pure EV might be more suited to our needs.

Waste Management project specialist Randall Potter says he had come to the Drive Electric fleet day with the specific intention of learning more about and driving the Nissan Leaf EV.

Our company creates renewable energy from landfill, by capturing the gas from landfill and converting it to electricity, so we are keen to see if the Leaf will fit into our fleet needs.

We are keen to see if the Leaf has the functionality we need for day to day use as a fleet car, says Potter.

Westpac Institutional Bank asset finance director Gary Nalder told AutoTalk that the bank was investigating the opportunity to provide operating leases to its customers for such vehicles, but needed to ensure the risk to the client was minimised and that the vehicles also met their corporate sustainability policy.