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A cleaner, brighter future

Mark Bursa

ONE OF THE IRONIES OF THE COVID PANDEMIC HAS BEEN the fact that the companies with the highest standards were often the hardest hit.

Private hire and taxi fleets could still pick up work such as transporting essential workers, and some of the more go-ahead firms opened up new avenues into delivering food, pharmaceuticals and other products.

But these avenues were not open to chauffeur companies. With the best will in the world, local authorities were not going to pay S-class rates to transport nurses to and from the wards. And a luxury limousine is far harder to clean than a Prius if that lamb vindaloo spills on its carpeted floor.

As a result, most chauffeur companies – even the very best ones – had no option but to hunker down and hope for a return as soon as possible. That’s the reality that faced Jason Ipekdjian, owner of Belgraves of London, when the first lockdown was imposed in March 2020. And Belgraves is undoubtedly excellent – a QSi Gold Award winner in both 2018 and 2019.

As with many of us, the pandemic took Jason by surprise. He’d just bought a new Range Rover P400 plug-in hybrid, and was poised to upgrade the business’ premises from a home office to new commercial premises. “We’d put in an offer on an office, but fortunately we managed to withdraw it when this kicked off,” he says. “We managed to get payment holidays on our vehicles too – including nine months on the Range Rover.”

Thereafter it was a case of keeping the overheads down through 2020, using the furlough scheme and waiting. “Coming into 2021, from January to March was very quiet,” he says.

From April, Jason says “we started seeing some green shoots”. This was mainly a return of regular pre-pandemic customers, such as middle eastern and Russian families that previously were regular visitors but who had simply not been travelling – even by private jet.

“Some of the families we deal with started to come back in,” says Jason. “We also won one large hotel account and we were upgraded on another but these didn’t start to deliver any work until July.”

Jason reckons Belgraves’ turnover fell 50% through the 12-month financial year from April 1, 2020 – better than a lot of rivals. The fleet fell from 10 cars to seven, but that trend has now been reversed, with the addition of new electric Mercedes-Benz EQV MPVs taking it back up to 11 – with more cars on order.

“It seems at long last we are coming toward the light at the end of the tunnel,” he says. “We took the decision to increase the fleet to meet the new demand we are experiencing.”

For Belgraves, the V-Class has proved even more favourable than ever, so this has been the main area of the fleet on which Jason has concentrated. “As we are regulated by TFL the only new V-Class we can licence is the EQV. But erring on the side of caution, we wanted to dip our toes into the EV pond before jumping in headfirst. So, we opted for one vehicle to start with.”

Belgraves’ first Mercedes-Benz EQV300 arrived in mid-August, just in time for the release of lockdown. And Jason says he was pleasantly surprised by the vehicle’s capability and acceptability.

Only detail trim changes distinguish the EQV from the diesel V-Class. “What I really liked about the EQV was the design of the rear cabin with the grey pinstripe panelling and 5-seat configuration complete with table between the two split armchair seats, which gives the EQV a more refined feel inside,” Jason says.

“Furthermore, to our delight, we discovered how much smoother the ride was in an electric vehicle. Gone is the vibration and noisy churn of the diesel engine and we are saying hello to a quiet, effortless and tranquil ride, and this is in the Sport Premium model which doesn’t have the air suspension!”

“The feedback we received from clients was extremely positive. Everyone loved the smoother, quieter ride and the benefit of the two armchair seats, set up at the rear of the cabin facing forward providing a more comfortable ride in the event there are only two passengers with a lot of luggage.”

“We were so pleased with the EQV we purchased two more almost immediately,” says Jason. These arrived at the end of September and proved to be a real boon during the October fuel crisis – no need to queue for diesel!”

What has really surprised Jason is the range of the EQV, which in real-world use is regularly much more than the quoted range of 213 miles on a full charge.

“Initially we were very concerned with the practicalities of running these vehicles but, with everything that is going on in the world, we really wanted to start making the transition to a zero emissions fleet,” he says. “As you can appreciate with a range of only 213 miles and tank that can’t be filled up in a few minutes we have had to make a few changes to ensure we run these vehicles as efficiently as possible for not just ourselves but also for our drivers.”

In practice, the drivers are regularly getting 250 miles out of a single charge – and surprisingly as much as 294 miles in circumstances where heating and air-con are not being used.

And the drivers who have been allocated the cars love them. One driver has had a 7kW charge point installed at his house, so the car can be charged overnight. Another driver has made himself into an expert on the locations of all the charge point networks in London – including finding a commercial charger just minutes from his home on which he can book charge slots. A third driver is based in Reading, and happily drives in to London, recharging to full in Hammersmith before starting his shift.

“The driver factor was a big concern with the inevitable search for an available charging point and then long charging times eating into their day. But our drivers really took the bull by the horns and were amazing at scheduling charging times around bookings, locating the rapid charging points close to their pick-ups and creating a map of the most reliable, cheapest and fastest points which they shared with each other,” Jason says.

“In addition, we started to get the infrastructure in place quickly to ensure vehicles are easily able to be recharged overnight. We have had two EV chargers installed at our office and one at the house of one of our drivers with another being installed at another driver’s house within the next few weeks. With charging points at driver’s houses there is very little effort and no disruption when it comes to refuelling.”

He adds: “The three drivers that are currently using the vehicles are extremely happy with them and with how easy it has been to run the vehicles, so much so we have other drivers asking when their electric vehicle is coming. It did help all round when we told drivers that they get 4 hours parking in Westminster for the cost of 10 minutes!”

Belgraves has restricted the EQV use to London and the home counties. “There is no point in trying to use a 200-mile range vehicle to go to Manchester and back and risk the job going sideways,” Jason says.

But the EQVs have been happily ferrying bookings as far afield as Oxford, Colchester and Portsmouth from Central London. “Until a longer-range version is released, we are retaining some diesel V-Classes on fleet to carry out long-distance bookings but as around 80% of our work is within London and the home counties the EQVs have been ideal machines for the job,” Jason says.

Jason wants to electrify the fleet as far as possible – a BMW 745Le plug-in hybrid is on the fleet, and two Mercedes-Benz S580eL PHEVs are on order. He’d like a proper electric S-Class rather than the EQS, but says he will reserve judgement until he’s driven the new electric Mercedes flagship.

So Belgraves is emerging from the pandemic wounded but still kicking- the losses of 2020 are quickly being erased. And the fleet is getting a major upgrade so the company’s future is not just brighter – it’s also cleaner.