Making the move into an electric future
This vehicle fleet could be the start of something much less petrol driven.
WELLINGTON Electricity is hoping its decision to swap its office vehicles for electric powered ones will spark a green revolution among fleet operators.
The company is one of the first Wellington businesses to introduce electric power to its fleet, replacing its five office vehicles with two fully electric Nissan Leafs and three plug-in hybrid Mitsubishi Outlanders last November.
CEO Greg Skelton says the company is hoping its early adoption of a more environmentally friendly fleet will turn its customers on to the benefits of electric vehicles.
‘‘It is just so logical to take electricity into transport fleets. It takes away C02 emissions, it takes away the $9 billion that the government has to spend on importing oil to fuel the transport fleets,’’ he says.
‘‘Environmentally, Wellington Electricity alone will be taking about seven tonnes of CO2 out of the environment.’’
The move has also helped the bottom line, with Skelton estimating the switch is saving the company around $4000 a year on fuel costs. This is despite the vehicles being charged up during the day, rather than during the night when off peak electricity rates are cheaper.
Wellington Electricity has installed five electric vehicle chargers in its office car park which are able to fully charge the Nissan Leafs in three and a half hours, and the plug-in hybrids in an hour and a half.
‘‘The chargers cost between $1000 and $1500 each so it is not [expensive] . . . and they can sit outdoors.’’
Skelton says the company is also helping facilitate the installation of electric vehicle chargers in other parts of the city.
‘‘We think it is important for fleet owners to know that if they are out in the field driving around and they need a top up, then there are readily accessible sites to go to get that done.
‘‘By the end of this year we expect there will be four fast chargers in the Wellington region, and they are very large 50-kilowatt chargers, so if we parked a Leaf next to one of those, in 20 minutes it would be fully charged if the battery was flat.’’
Wellington Electricity has chosen to lease its vehicles through an agreement with vehicle leasing company, LeasePlan, which is open to purchasing and leasing out electric vehicles.
‘‘We could have purchased them but we wanted to set up a business model with LeasePlan because this technology is changing so rapidly. There may be newer models of vehicles coming with longer battery ranges, so we decided (this was the best way) to keep the fleet up to date and replenished.’’
Skelton regards the three plugin hybrids in the fleet as a bridging solution, and says the company will likely swap the Outlanders for fully electric vehicles once their range increases.
He says making the switch to an electric and plug-in hybrid fleet has been trouble free.
‘‘That comes with the territory because an electric vehicle is so simple. There are probably less than 20 moving parts. In an internal combustion engine there are a couple of thousand parts you have to keep moving or lubricated or maintained. In an electric vehicle there are very few to go wrong.’’
Skelton has also acquired a second hand Nissan Leaf from electric vehicle importers EVImports for personal use.
He uses the Leaf to make the return 40 kilometre trip from his home in Tawa to Wellington Electricity’s office in Petone each day.
After his wife observed that the brakes were a little ‘‘grabby’’ Skelton took the car to Nissan dealers Gazley to be checked over – and was surprised to be given money back.
‘‘I paid their standard maintenance fee, they did a minor adjustment and they gave me some money back saying, ‘if we service a vehicle we usually do a five or six point check. On these there is nothing else to check’.’’
At home, Skelton plugs his Leaf in to a standard 10 amp wall socket and looks forward to the day when electric vehicle owners can use the stored energy in their cars’ batteries to power their households.
‘‘That would be quite good for Wellington from a resilience point of view.’’