Electric Vehicles

A pledge to go electric

The EV100 initiative, which sees carbon-conscious organisations pledge to transition to an electric vehicle fleet by 2030, has recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. We look at how the initiative has progressed from having ten founding members, to now boasting 128 signatories

The EV100 initiative brings together likeminded companies committed to accelerating the transition to electric vehicles. Through a collective pledge to go electric by 2030, the initiative sends a powerful signal that the future of transportation is electric.

The initiative, now in its fifth year, has recently taken on five new members who will collectively transition over 44,000 vehicles to electric by 2030.

New joiners include global pharmaceutical and biosciences company Bayer, British-based multinational bank Barclays, international financial services provider Allianz SE, India’s fastest-growing agri-commerce company WayCool and precision instrumentation supplier Spectris Plc.

In addition to electrifying their fleets, WayCool and Spectris Plc have also committed to installing charging infrastructure across their estate for use by their staff and customers.

With these new joiners, membership now stands at 128. In five years, EV100 has grown from ten founding members to a global network of businesses committed to the growth of electromobility across almost 100 markets worldwide.

Why did it start?

EV100 was launched in 2017 as a global business initiative designed to accelerate acceptance of electric vehicles and its infrastructure. It was launched in New York by The Climate Group during Climate Week. At the time, it was the only initiative of its kind to encourage global businesses to commit to electric transport, with members committing to transition their petrol and diesel fleets to electric vehicle fleets by 2030. The 10 founding founding members are LeasePlan, Unilever, Baidu, IKEA Group, HP Inc., Vattenfall, PG&E, Deutsche Post DHL, Metro AG and Heathrow Airport. At the time, Helen Clarkson, CEO of The Climate Group, said: “EV100 will use companies’ collective global buying power and influence on employees and customers to build demand and cut costs. The members see the business logic in leading a faster transition and addressing local air quality issues in their markets. They are setting a competitive challenge to the auto industry to deliver more EVs, sooner and at lower cost.”

Net zero goals

One of the five new joiners is Barclay’s bank, who has a commitment to electrify its UK fleet by 2025, and global fleet by 2030. Myriam

Coneim, Barclays’ global sustainability and governance lead, operations, said: “In March 2020 we become one of the first banks to announce an ambition to be net zero by 2050, which includes our operational emissions. To decarbonise our operations, earlier this year we committed to transitioning all of our UK vehicle fleet to electric by 2025 with an additional target of 2030 for our global fleet, using ultra-low emissions vehicles for the latter where electric is not viable. “Addressing this viability challenge was key to our decision to join EV100, and The five new EV100 members will collectively transition over 44,000 vehicles to electric by 2030 we look forward to working together with Climate Group and other members to speed up the transition to electric, particularly in less mature EV markets.” Rebecca Dunn, head of sustainability at Spectris, said: “It’s an exciting time for EV100 and we are pleased to be one of the latest companies to sign up to this ambitious initiative. We’re committing to electrifying our 430-strong fleet and rolling out charging infrastructure for our staff and customers. Committing to EV100 now will help us achieve our net zero by 2040 target. We’re looking forward to working with likeminded companies and working with our supply chain and customers to develop their own EV fleets, too.” Werner Baumann, CEO and chief sustainability officer at Bayer, said: “We are pleased to be joining EV100. As a leading Life Science company, we have implemented ambitious sustainability targets and the decision to convert our E

Sharing the lessons we’ve learnt from our environmental strategy

At the AA, we are committed to lowering carbon emissions across our business. As part of our ESG strategy, we believe that driving shouldn’t cost the earth. The buck, however, doesn’t stop with us – we’re also keen to help our customers on their journey to lower emissions too by sharing the lessons we’re learning along the way.

This is why we decided to add a hydrogen fuel cell roadside breakdown vehicle to our fleet, which we unveiled at this year’s British Motor Show. Hydrogen is a clean fuel that produces only water when consumed in a fuel cell. Decarbonised hydrogen has a major role to play globally in reaching net zero emissions targets. The UK government’s aim is to have up to 2GW of green hydrogen production capacity by 2025 and up to 10GW installed by 2030.

The AA’s Hyundai NEXO is designed for breakdown jobs in ultralow emission zones, and will carry most of the tools and equipment found across the rest of our famous yellow fleet. With an impressive range of 414 miles, the NEXO can fuel up in just five minutes.

As members of the UK Aggregated Hydrogen Freight Consortium (AHFC), the partnership of leading UK hydrogen industry and mobility companies which works with large fleet operators to map out a workable solution for hydrogen transport in the UK, we have considered the benefits of hydrogen for some time. The NEXO’s introduction marks another step towards our net-zero future.

Hydrogen vehicles are also highly practical. They have a significantly higher range than EVs and don’t need to be regularly recharged, which is a huge benefit for us operationally as a business. We hope to inspire our business customers to consider hydrogen as a future fuel too. L

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To find out more about the vehicle, visit: All-New Hyundai NEXO | Hydrogen Fuel Cell SUV.

Stuart Thomas, director of fleet and accident management Services at the AA

 vehicle fleet to electric cars is another important step. It shows how serious we are about becoming climate neutral. As part of our EV100 commitment, we will transition 26,000 vehicles to electric wherever technically and economically feasible.”

Karthik Jayaraman, managing director of WayCool Foods, said: “We are happy to join EV100 at this time of celebration for the initiative. The food and agri sector contribute to global GHG emissions significantly. As a purpose driven organisation, and one of India’s fastest growing food and agri tech platforms, we are committed in developing and driving a climate resilient supply chain and a sustainable food economy. In the past seven years, we have demonstrated with multiple case studies how organisations can be ClimateSmart and BusinessSmart too. Electrification of the fleet is one of our prime focus areas. We have valuable insights to share with the wider EV100 community, having already transitioned 20 per cent of our last-mile delivery fleet to EVs, and we look forward to playing an active and collaborative part in the journey to fully electric road transportation.”

Barbara Karuth-Zelle, member of the board of management at Allianz SE commented: “We are excited to join EV100 at this time of celebration for the initiative. Our commitment will see Allianz transition its car fleet of over 14,000 vehicles to sustainable fuel by 2030. We look forward to playing an active and collaborative part in accelerating the journey to 100 per cent sustainable mobility.”

Commenting on the new members, Sandra Roling, director of transport at the Climate Group, said: “We warmly welcome our five new members who have made the bold commitment to electrify their fleets and deploy charging infrastructure by 2030. It’s amazing to think that in just five years EV100 has grown so rapidly. We will continue to push other businesses, vehicle manufacturers and governments across the world to work with us to ensure the future of road transportation is electric.

“I also want to say a huge congratulations to every single EV100 member as we celebrate five years, for the progress made so far on their journey with us. Over 200,000 EVs are already on the road thanks to EV100 members, and by 2030 over 5.5 million fleet vehicles will be zero emission.”

Saving emissions

One of the early members of the EV100 is facilities management company Mitie, who are successfully progressing towards their goal of having an electric fleet by 2025. Mitie has a range of electric cars, vans, and even a gritter, taking its total, as of the end of 2021, to more than 2,000 EVs, consisting of 15 different models. The vehicles are based throughout the UK, from the Scottish Highlands and Islands down to the Cornish coast, as well as EVs working on Mitie’s contracts supporting the UK’s Overseas Territories, including Ascension Island. In addition, Mitie has invested heavily in the UK’s electric vehicle charge point infrastructure, installing thousands of charge points for a broad range of its customers, as well as at employees’ homes.

The transition to a wholly electric fleet is a central component of Mitie’s Plan Zero commitment to eliminate carbon emissions from its power and transport. Its current fleet of EVs reduces Mitie’s annual CO2 emissions by around 10,000 tonnes and the business has a detailed timeline to switch the rest of its vehicles to zero emission by 2025. In addition to this, the Mitie Fleet Team has put a series of measures in place to reduce the emissions of its existing petrol and diesel vehicles, such as a Telematics Driver Behaviour system that has reduced diesel consumption by 75,000 litres and saved 19.5 tonnes of CO2 in just one year.

Heavy-goods vehicles

Following on from the success of the EV100 initiative, the Climate Group has recently launched a new transport leadership commitment, EV100+, which targets medium and heavy duty vehicles, which are currently harder to electrify.

Five globally recognised businesses – IKEA, Unilever, JSW Steel Limited, A.P. Moller – Maersk and GeoPost/DPDgroup – are the founding members of the initiative. Together they have committed to transition their fleet of vehicles over 7.5 tonnes to zero emission by 2040 in OECD markets, China and India.

Representing just four per cent of all vehicles on the road globally, medium to heavy duty vehicles (MHDVs) account for 40 per cent of all road transport emissions and a third of total transport fuel use. These vehicles produced over five per cent of total global CO2 emissions in 2019, predicted to increase to over 11 per cent by 2050 if steps to decarbonise are not taken.

In five years, EV100 has grown from ten founding members to a global network of businesses committed to the growth of electromobility across almost 100 markets

To achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement, heavy-duty road transport must be completely decarbonised. With advances in technology making it possible, all new trucks sold in the world’s major markets must be zero emission by 2040.

Sandra Roling, director of transport at Climate Group, comments: “We’re very excited to launch EV100+ at this year’s Climate Week NYC. It’s a great demonstration of leadership from the founding members. MHDVs represent the final frontier of zero emission road transportation, and EV100+ will tackle the heaviest, most polluting vehicles on our roads around the world.”

Sandra added: “We’ve seen over the last five years how EV100 has acted as a powerful catalyst for change across light-duty vehicle fleets. Now it’s time for EV100+ to drive this change across global MHDV fleets as well – businesses are willing to lead this change.”

EV100+’s founding members are helping to drive demand for zero emission MHDVs from manufacturers and supporting governments in implementing policies that encourage their adoption at the speed and scale needed.

Elisabeth Munck af Rosenschöld, IKEA supply chain operations manager, said: “Key to accelerating the deployment of zero-emission trucks is to collaborate across the transport industry with confidence and clarity on the direction. The electrification of transport plays a big role in phasing out fossil fuels in the IKEA supply chain. We are joining EV100+ to magnify the movement toward sustainable transportation. It is urgent and doable.”

Morten Bo Christiansen, SVP, head of decarbonisation at A.P. Moller – Maersk, adds: “We are thrilled to be one of the founding members of Climate Group’s new EV100+ initiative alongside other leading businesses. In A.P. Moller – Maersk, we are committed to transition our entire business to net zero emissions by 2040 – including our landside business. This initiative sends a powerful message to customers, partners, and manufacturers that we believe the future of our global medium- and heavy-duty fleet is net zero emissions.”

Sanjay Rath, executive vice president for commercial and purchase at JSW Steel Limited, commented=: “By joining EV100+ initiative as a founding member, we at JSW Steel advance our commitment to support India’s net zero goal. JSW Steel has an ambitious target of reducing its carbon emission by 42 per cent (versus base year 2005) by FY30.

“We are currently on the journey towards achieving the target through a strategic climate action agenda and various steps in our operations. Through this commitment we would want to decarbonise our freight operations by transitioning the fleet (in heavier segments > 7.5t) to electric vehicles or alternatives, thus allowing our unrelenting desire to become better everyday.”

Michelle Grose, VP, global logistics and fulfilment at Unilever, adds: “Unilever has set the goal of achieving net zero emissions across our value chain by 2039, and logistics is a key area of focus since it accounts for 15 per cent of our total footprint. In recent years we’ve made big strides on CO2 savings by improving efficiency and reducing the number of trucks on the road. Now, alongside our EV100+ partners we’ll be sending a powerful signal to governments, manufacturers and the wider industry that the future of global medium- and heavy-duty road transport is electric, and we hope to inspire other companies to join us.”

Jean-Claude Sonet, executive vice president in charge of marketing, communication and sustainability at GeoPost/DPDgroup, says: “We are committed to sustainable delivery and have set ourselves a bold ambition to reach net zero by 2040. Yet success will depend on our ability to transition our medium- and heavy-goods vehicles to zero tailpipe emissions by 2040. All sectors must work together if society is to be meet global climate goals. We are therefore excited to work alongside other likeminded businesses to send a powerful message to both governments and manufacturers that we believe the future of trucking is zero emission.” L

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An electric future for everybody

At LeasePlan, we’re committed to a fully electric future for everybody. We’ve been offering EVs to individuals and business fleets for more than a decade now through our range of marketleading products and services. Our flexible leasing solutions, for example, are designed to deliver for businesses who need cars or vans for several weeks or months, without a long-term contract. We have a number of EV models to choose from, allowing businesses to introduce them to their fleets in a fully scalable way.

As an EV100 Founder Member, we’re also walking the walk ourselves: we’ve already transitioned our own employee fleet to EVs. The response from our colleagues across the UK and abroad has been fantastic, and we hope that our own actions will encourage other fleet-operating businesses to make their own pledges.

Recently, we joined forces with other leading experts in the automotive sector to produce a research report into the future of electric motoring and how we, as an industry, can best mobilise the next generation of EV drivers. The study of over 2,000 drivers, conducted by IPSOS, uncovered a number of important issues, including a significant divide between older and younger drivers in their views around EV driving. Younger drivers were found to be the most likely to consider an EV as their next vehicle, but a large percentage are still being held back by the perceived costs and lack of charging infrastructure.

The findings of our report emphasise just how far we’ve come in our journey towards electric, but also reminds us of the long road ahead. Together with our partners, we’ve made a number of recommendations for both the government and the wider automotive industry on what needs to happen to get more people to make the switch. L

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www.worldevday.org/research

Neill Emmett, head of marketing at LeasePlan UK

A safer road to new zero

There’s no doubt we are at a landmark point in automotive history as we move to a future of alternatively fuelled vehicles (AFVs). With the government’s announcement that the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles will be banned by 2030 – 10 years earlier than planned – that future isn’t far away. Today, the adoption of AFVs is increasing at pace as we are on our journey to 2030 and it’s vital businesses have the right support they need to embrace an electric future

There’s a huge amount of noise in the media, from government and by drivers themselves, on the topic of electric vehicles (EVs). For some this is exciting, others daunting and for many, understandably, an area of confusion. From charging through to cost and maintenance, there’s a myriad of considerations and a wealth of information out there which will inevitably evolve as the technology does. One area which shouldn’t be overlooked within this is driver training.

It’s vital that businesses and drivers adapt to ensure they remain safe on the road in EVs, are legally compliant and can achieve cost efficiencies where possible. There isn’t necessarily going to be a onesize-fits-all answer to this, as businesses of different shapes and sizes will have varying requirements for EVs and their drivers. Businesses will therefore move at different speeds towards full EV adoption. What is certain is that safety needs to remain a number one priority for all businesses, and it will remain ours at Drivetech, whatever the power source of the vehicle.

In a more global sense, world leaders and environmentalists are racing to protect our planet from harmful CO2 emissions and global warming. We’ve already seen some of the devastating effects of climate change this summer with world-record temperatures and this will only continue to worsen without co-ordinated international efforts to reduce emissions. Traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles negatively impact the environment due to CO2 emissions and fuel consumption, which leads to air pollution and global warming. The introduction of electric vehicles encourages a potential 40% cut in co2 emissions, shining a light on just how much of an impact owning an EV can have in a more environmentally conscious world.

So ultimately it makes sense to be supportive of political and commercial efforts to transition to electric fleets. But whatever the powertrain of the vehicle, Drivetech offer one of the most comprehensive ranges of driver risk management and driver coaching services to businesses and we do this in the UK, and internationally too. For sure, we have seen an uplift in interest for our specific EV driver familiarisation courses and we are grateful and pleased to work with a fantastic and broad range of fleet operators as they begin their transitions to the new world of electrification.

But whether it is helping educate drivers on EV regenerative braking or the cars lighting acceleration, the core Drivetech commitment to ingraining safety behaviour remains – to reduce costs, protect reputations, and to save lives. We do this for drivers in cars, vans, trucks, buses and coaches. And across our portfolio, from fleet risk health checks to licence checking to driver risk assessments and driver coaching and learning, we are evolving to address our customer’s needs both on road and increasingly online too.

So Drivetech’s message and vision here is fundamentally underpinned by two twin pillars. We want to keep drivers safe on the roads whilst also helping businesses make a safe transition to electric to help our environment. The fast-paced fleet environment can sometimes make it difficult for businesses and decision-makers to prioritise their duty of care to their employees. We’re here to actually help businesses to make this a manageable part of their fleet strategy and to help empower drivers and managers by providing tools, resources and products that save lives.

You can find out more about Drivetech’s suite of products dedicated to electric mobility here, and use the free EV Guide to Charging Infrastructure module, here: https://www.drivetech.co.uk/driving-electric

Our website has a range of whitepapers and other free downloads which I’d encourage you to explore. As things change, we will change and adapt too. But we remain driven to keep people safe. L

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Advertisement Feature Why more low power EV chargers result in easier fleet electrification

One electric vehicle, two drivers, seven days, 19 recharges, and over 2,400 miles. This has resulted in a gazillion learnings to share from team char.gy’s experience of the Great British EV Rally – an all-electric road trip of 50 cars and vans testing the public charging network from John o’Groats to Land’s End

What’s the biggest learning for fleet operators and councils? It’s how low power charging will underpin how easily (and therefore quickly) fleets can electrify.

Because low-power public chargers play a key role in reducing pinch points on the national rapid charging network. And as the number of electric cars and vans grows, low power chargers will need to be everywhere in large numbers to enable fleet drivers to easily recharge when their vehicle is idle vs recharging being a task in itself.

Here are a few of our experiences that highlight the issue.

Where are the chargers?

Driving lots of miles in unfamiliar places makes you a lot more conscious of public chargers. The good news is the public rapid charging network in the UK is widespread. Yes it has issues and will need to keep growing to meet future demand, but when you’re on the road from A to B and need to top up, you won’t be totally stranded. Especially with the aid of charging and route planning apps like Zap Map and fleet-specific ones like Paua.

But at points A and B, there is a severe lack of public chargers that enable drivers to start their day fully charged, or top up while they’re busy on the job for a few hours. And that can create problems.

No charge when idle means long waits

Team Char.gy’s longest day was extended by three hours due to waiting for a charge point. Waiting in the middle of the highlands for a single charge point shared between the four cars that pulled up whilst we were there. The wait was made worse by the 50kW charger performing at just over half its advertised speed.

We stopped because we had to. We made the drive up from London the day before. Our last charge had been the night before in Inverness and we didn’t have enough juice to make the return drive to Inverness without another charge.

Later in the rally, we saw drivers having to wait for rapid chargers even at hubs with as many as 15 charge points. Why? Because other drivers felt they needed to recharge close to a full battery as they weren’t sure there would be chargers available at their point B.

More chargers in more places

Day one of the EV Rally and we were feeling the lack of overnight charging already. For us it was the hotel that lacked chargers. That was our “charge when idle” opportunity. For fleet drivers, enabling “charge when idle” will need more public chargers in other locations like residential streets where the driver sleeps and car parks close to their place of work for the day.

For a fleet driver, the AFP (Association of Fleet Professionals) estimates that 40 per cent of the whole fleet does not have access to off-street parking at home, and that number jumps to 70 per cent if you look at light commercial vehicles.

Cost gains from convenient charging

The lack of convenient “charge when idle” opportunities also leaves drivers reliant on more expensive options. The current state of flux in the energy market feeding through to p/kWh prices at different public networks at different times makes a price comparison difficult. We noticed a wide price variance between networks and charging types. But a rule of thumb is low power charging in public is typically around 20 per cent cheaper than rapid charging. An important issue for fleet managers!

Carbon gains from convenient charging

As fleet drivers tend to be higher mileage drivers and account for a large proportion of the overall driving in the UK, it is a priority to enable fleets to move to EVs faster. Chargers for private EV users are important too but the incredible gains possible through electrifying fleets make fleets a potentially massive contributor to air quality goals.

It is also often more environmentally friendly to charge overnight as that’s when national electricity demand is at its lowest. As we did nearly all our EV Rally charging during the day, we added to the daytime energy demand, often in the evening peak when the grid is at its dirtiest. The variance is typically between 80 and 300 gCO2/kWh. Nearly four times the carbon based on when you recharge.

With exciting new developments in flexible charging, using EVs to balance energy production and consumption will further allow EVs to green our transport and energy systems. When EVs are plugged in and available to charge over many hours each day, their energy demand can be matched to changeable renewable energy production and support a more renewable-capable electricity system.

Collaboration is key

No one can solve this on their own. If fleet operators and charging companies keep working collaboratively with councils and other landowners to offer chargers to all parkers, we can make moving to green fleets the best option for everyone. L

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