Fleet News Group

In this Fleet News Group podcast, host Caroline Falls talks with Dickson Leow, General Manager at IM group, and also of its unit Infinitev, which saves spent electric vehicle batteries from landfill. 

The interview was just a day after Leow presented at the inaugural Australian Battery Recycling and Manufacturing Summit.

Mo Abbas, strategy and marketing executive at last-mile delivery group ANC Delivers, announced plans on this week’s Fleet News Group podcast with host Caroline Falls for an initiative to accelerate Australian fleets’ transition to electric vehicles.

ANC and partners including Fleet News Group, LDV Australia, Evie Networks and CarBon, will launch the campaign on World EV Day — on Saturday, September 9. 

The campaign — Take the Pledge — is aimed at getting organisations to pledge publicly their intentions on how many vehicles in their fleets they will switch to electric powertrains.

“We're launching a nationwide campaign to encourage companies across Australia and in fact further abroad to take the pledge and commit to adding zero emission vehicles to their fleet, so that we can support sustainable transport practices,” said Abbas, adding, “What we are trying to achieve is galvanise a commitment to an energy transition, one that's tangible, and that's backed by a hard commitment by a specific endpoint.”

ANC is committing to 100 electric vehicles by the end of 2025. It already has about 20, including a couple of three-wheeled tuk tuks, in its fleet of more than 1,000 vans and trucks nationwide.

Fleet News Group podcast, where host Caroline Falls talks about the intersection of fleet and sustainability introduces Heather Bone, the director ESG — environment, social and governance, ostensibly chief sustainability officer at Team Global Express.

Bone is a regular on the speaker and panel circuit at fleet transport, and sustainability conferences. 

Team Global Express is making a name for itself as a leader in the transition for a greener lower emissions fleet. It emerged out of the Japan Post Toll Group when the unit was hived off to a private equity group Allegro Funds in September 2021. It rebadged itself from Toll Global Express to Team Global Express, still the team at TSG.

Liz Yeaman, founder of NZ based transport consultancy Retyna, talks to Fleet News Group podcast host Caroline Falls about how she participated in NZ’s transformation to EVs almost 20 years ago, the upcoming Electro Mobility Summit in NZ she will be chairing next month, and the urgent need to adopt the technology we have in the face of climate change crises.

Prior to setting up the consultancy in 2018 Yeaman worked for 22 years at the EECA, Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. Latterly there she was general manager of transport and responsible for leading the government authority’s electric vehicle program.

She started working on EV projects at EECA as early as 2007.

Paul Fox, co-founder of EVIE Networks, builder of Australia’s fast charging network, talks with Fleet News Group podcast host Caroline Falls about the exponential growth of electrification infrastructure, enthusiasm for electric vehicles in Australia and the shortage of them here and around the world.

Among EVIE’s projects is, with support of ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the public network of 42 stations on an intercity network stretching from Adelaide, in South Australia, to Cairns, in far north Queensland. This charging network is designed to service and be affordable for work vehicles.

EVIE also has a fleet services unit to supply charging infrastructure at company depots and other commercial locations including shopping centres and tourism resorts.

Adrian Givoye, General Manager at RedBook Australia, a unit of carsales.com.au, talked with Fleet News Group’s podcast host Caroline Falls about residual values. Givoye stepped into the podcast studio at the Australasian Fleet Managers Association conference after giving one of the most interesting talks, covering the subject every fleet manager cares about. 

Tony Fairweather, founder and CEO of SEA Electric, took time out of the Brisbane Truck Show to chat with our podcast host Caroline Falls. They talk about the new Australian OEM’s expansion in the US, and Fairweather’s outlook for electric transport.

“The battery electric is the powertrain of choice for this segment,” said Fairweather, speaking about the last-mile, or urban delivery task. “Transitioning from now, next year and the year after, we’re going to be large in all markets globally. Even in developing markets, the incentives are there, the policies are coming into play. The diesel engine in terms of urban application will be dead in five to 10 years.”

SEA Electric started out in 2012 in Australia but is now headquartered in the U.S. as its proprietary drivetrains which can be fitted to an array of truck and bus bodies attract big contracts there, including for as many as 10,000 of the iconic yellow school buses.

SEA Electric now operates in several other countries, including New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India, Thailand and Indonesia. Other big deals in the US include an exclusive contract with Mack Trucks to provide the powertrain technology for its medium-duty lines — the MD6 and the MD7.

Swedish truck maker Volvo unveiled its first electric prime movers in Australia at the Brisbane Truck Show. Tim Camilleri, e-mobility Solutions Manager at Volvo Group, stepped up into the cab of the FM to record this interview with our podcast host Caroline Falls.

“If this vehicle doesn't make noise, what can we do with it? How do we optimise its usage even further above and beyond what a vehicle that would make noise does?” — Tim Camilleri, e-mobility Solutions Manager at Volvo Group.

Tim Staley, Transport & Logistics Lead and Chief Operating Officer at technology consultancy NCS, spoke to Fleet News podcast, about key trends in transport, including autonomous vehicles, mobility as a service, intelligent transport systems to dynamically manage traffic, and more.

Staley whose broad senior executive experience encompasses working at global consultancy Accenture, major world mining group Rio Tinto, Australian commercial rail group Aurizon where he helped automate their railway operations, and on the gas fields at energy group Origin commented on the evolution of environmentalism and how all the worlds he operated in have coalesced.

“It does seem very natural now that an ecosystem has formed that needs to rise as one to achieve a new automated future with greater mobility options and greater sustainability to support a growing population,” said Staley. 

Brendan Wheeler, who co-founded EV charger supply group EVSE in 2015, talks to Fleet News Group podcast, about Australia’s new EV strategy, the outlook for EVs and charging infrastructure and gives a template for fleet managers to follow when making the transition.

"We've really got to take them all the way back to the start and ask some of those fundamental questions, such as, how many vehicles do you have? How far are they driving? How long have they parked for, and really go into a bit more depth and detail around those aspects to then come up with a final solution."

"Federal, state and local government EV policies are aligning which should really help to set the foundation for explosive growth over the next few years”.