Businesses can get more electric vehicles on our roads

Andrea Persico, Principal Consultant, Amped Consulting

28 November 2023

Amped Consulting principal consultant Andrea Persico provides advice on fleet transitions to make the switch to EVs.

Businesses making the switch to electric vehicles would accelerate the transition away from petrol cars, says a company working on making it happen. Fleets transitioning to electric would fast-track the number of secondhand vehicles on the market.

Because fleet vehicles are generally owned for between two-to-five years before they're resold. This is the fastest way we can get a lot of vehicles on the streets and then into a secondhand car market. That creates other opportunities and other challenges as well.

The year 2030 has been targeted for the Tasmanian government's fleet to be switched to electric, which Mrs Persico said was a good target for other businesses to follow. Ideally, all fleets should be transitioning vehicles as they come up for replacement.

It is very important for fleets to plan their charging before they're purchasing a vehicle, and they need to be training their staff.

Purchasing vehicles is the easy part, but it gets very complicated if you've got the car sitting there and you don't know how to charge it or staff are not confident using it.

Busting myths on electric vehicles

Charging, fire safety and whether electric vehicles are just a fad are all myths surrounding the technology. While driving an EV is "quite simple", it is different and people might find that change change a bit scary.

There needs to be education for fleet vehicle users, as well as fleet managers and a lot of money and thought needs to go into charging the cars as well. But generally speaking any power point can be used to charge the vehicles.

Having owned an EV for the past three years and used it as my primary vehicle, I am pretty comfortable with it by now. My five-year-old can plug it in for me. If I have to get in a petrol car and go and fill up a petrol car, it's really a very strange experience. It’s really just a matter of habit.

On fire safety, Mrs Persico said EVs were 10 times less likely to catch on fire than a petrol vehicle. While a battery is safer, an EV fire is different from fuel, which requires training for first responders to learn how to manage a battery fire.

Ideas a transition to electric is a "fad" is simply untrue. Nations such as Norway and China were well on the road to switching over 100% of their vehicles to electric. There's definitely a lot of work in front of us, but it is being done in other jurisdictions so you can learn a lot from other countries who are further ahead.

Electric for more than cars

The clock is ticking down on the federal government's promise to pass a low emissions standard to bring more low-emissions vehicles to Australia. At the launch of the National Electric Vehicle Strategy in April, the Commonwealth promised to introduce a standard with draft legislation expected by the end of the year.

There are some great studies internationally - say France, they have an e-bikes for clunkers scheme where by the government will give you an electric bike or scooter if you're trading in an old vehicle. Earlier this month, the Tasmanian government introduced e-transport initiatives, including rebates on the purchase of e-mobility devices. Additionally, the Tasmanian government has chipped in to help build fast chargers statewide across two grant program rollouts.

Andrea is Principal Consultant at Amped Consulting and a Carbon Zero Initiative Clean Energy Champion