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Ampol’s head of e-Mobility Angeles Miranda talks to Fleet Auto News Caroline Falls for our podcast series about the Australian petroleum company’s rollout of a national electric vehicle charging network, called AmpCharge, and how fleets are making the transition to  EVs.

In April 2022, Ampol announced it was rolling out an EV charging network at its petrol stations around the country, the first of which are set to open in June 2022.

Route planning can cut emissions as much as 20 percent is the takeaway from this podcast conversation with HERE Technologies’ Jason Jameson. Caroline Falls talks with the technology group’s general manager Asia Pacific about how technology can help organisations meet their sustainability goals.

“Sustainability is the big challenge of our time,” said Jameson, adding, “And from a business standpoint, it’s interesting because if you can reduce emissions, reduce the carbon footprint, as opposed to just offsetting it, you're really making a meaningful difference to the environment.”

Jameson said a 20 percent cut in emissions from route planning and optimisation is typical. He said idle times can be cut 20 percent, and estimated time of arrival on pickups and deliveries can be cut as much as 40 percent.

Bree Allen, Business Development Manager at Summit Fleet Leasing and Management, reckons you can make the business case now to have an electric car versus a traditional ICE vehicle. In this podcast Bree considers the total cost of ownership for going electric. 

“More and more people are enthusiastic about electric vehicles. There's a few factors driving change. Climate change awareness has to be a major driver. People in companies are concerned about the environment. A lot of companies also nowadays have emission targets built within their future business plans. The local government incentives are also assisting to drive that change. Plus technology advances including batteries, as well as the long term plans for manufacturers. We're not really going to be able to purchase ICE vehicles in decades to come. So I'm finding more and more companies are dipping their toes into what the future of fleet will look like.”

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Each year in Australia about 23 million car and motorbike tires are discarded. Another 19 million or so much larger truck tyres also finish up life on the road each year. In all, it’s some 330,000 tonnes of tyres that reach end of life each year in Australia.

The good news is that most of those are disposed of properly, recovered and processed ready for recycling and other uses thanks to Tyre Stewardship Australia, which is funded by accredited tyre brands and suppliers, and which focuses on ensuring as many as possible used tyres are collected and recycled.

Fleet Auto News spoke recently to TSA’s CEO Lina Goodman for our podcast about the problems and possibilities for new uses of spent tyres. TSA was formed in 2013 with its two key objectives to arrest the flow of used tyres going to landfill, and to find new uses for old and recycled tyres. While the earlier focus was on getting tyre suppliers to do the right thing, Goodman is presently focussed on getting fleet management organisations, and fleets, to become TSA accredited.

Today, some 90 percent of used tyres in Australia are saved from landfill.

Fleet Auto News’ Caroline Falls talks with Tim Roberts, founder of Perth-based consultancy Fleet Strategy and former AfMA, the Australasian Fleet Management Association. They talk about eco driving among other things. In particular they discuss a project Tim worked on with the National Roads Safety Partnership Program, developing a so-called tool box kit designed to help fleet managers lead a conversation with their drivers on the benefits of eco driving. 

Thankyou Sofico Services for sponsoring this podcast. 

Fleet Auto News’ Caroline Falls talks with Kirsten Corson, founder of EV sharing company Zilch in New Zealand for a FAN podcast. They chat about about NZ’s transition to EVs, Zilch’s role and the new association called Women of Electric Vehicles. 

The FAN podcast has a sponsor this year, Sofico Services. Thankyou Sofico for making this series possible. Themes for this year are future technologies for fleets, sustainability, and circular economy principles such as reuse, remanufacture and recycle. 

Fleet Auto News Caroline Falls talks with Marcelo Salgardo. He’s one of a trio of Tritium executives that broke away and started a company EVOS, to manage EV charging hardware and energy for fleets of Australia. Marcelo says he’d like to see bolder government policies to boost EV take-up.

Everty is a technology (software) company in the e-mobility sector and provides EV charging solutions and a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform to companies installing Electric Vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.

The software allows EV charging station operators to monitor, manage and monetise their charging infrastructure assets and provides an interface to EV drivers for the use of chargers. Everty’s software enables efficient management and operation of physical assets (EV charging stations) as well as the integration of cars and charging infrastructure with the electricity grid.

Geoff has over 17 years of Business Development experience within fleet management and automotive industry. He has worked in new business acquisition and account management roles within the UK for Pitney Bowes and in Australia for Interleasing, Ford Motor Company of Australia, and held regional and national sales leadership roles at Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited and Permagard Australia.

Fleet Auto News Caroline Falls talks with Dickson Leow, general manager at Innovative Mechatronics, or the IM Group, about future mobility and sustainability. Before joining IM Group, Dickson was leader of technology and mobility future at the Australian Road Research Board. He has 25 years experience in the automotive world, including in vehicle engineering, safety, and regulation. He was ambassador for Toyota Australia in fuel cell vehicle technology. Dickson also was an Australian committee expert, drafting international standards for future transport mobility.

This is an edited transcript of the recording of FAN’s first podcast for 2022. For the full interview you can listen to the podcast linked here. We would like to thank our new sponsor SOFICO SERVICES for the support and for making this podcast possible.

Recorded in 2020, Caroline Falls talks with Dan Hilson about the evolution of Charge Togther Fleets and why it was created.