By Robert Wilson, Manager IPWEA FLEET

I know we talk a lot about alternate fuel vehicles, and for good reason: they are inevitable. All the well-touted reasons for electric vehicles not being feasible are disappearing. Let’s look at it a little more closely.

Firstly, the naysayers suggest EVs are too expensive. Well, prices are coming down. The Tesla Model 3 is priced from USD $35,000 (let’s say around AUD $50,000). The Nissan Leaf had a similar RRP back in 2015 and the Mitsi i-Miev was a little less. And that’s before any discounts or incentives.

But as fleet managers we don’t make decisions on the purchase price alone; we need to consider whole-of-life costs, all the costs to buy, own and operate the vehicle over its life. This is where EVs will continue to make big inroads. There are low fuel costs to consider and importantly potentially very low maintenance and repair costs. EVs are mechanically simple compared to an internal combustion powered car.

Next, drivers are concerned about the distance EVs can travel between recharging. There is even a name for it: range anxiety. Again, we need to think how real this is. The new Nissan Leaf will have a range of around 240 km. Tesla is saying a range up to nearly 500 km for the Model 3 – similar to a petrol tank range. But what range do we need? The vast majority of vehicles travel less than 100 km a day. And being able to recharge at home every night while you sleep turns refuelling from a chore to an incidental outcome.

Finally, there is concern about recharging infrastructure; those places where you can plug in and top up when the battery gets low. Again, the majority of recharging will be done at home. And if you are on the quintessential Aussie road trip that’s ok too. The Queensland Government’s Electric Super Highway running from Gold Coast to Cairns will have you covered. There are also a number local council and commercial projects underway to increase the spread of infrastructure.

Governments around the world are seeing the current and future benefits of EVs with many actively supporting the technology with direct and indirect incentives. Australia’s Federal Government is getting on-board too, with recent support for the technology from the Federal Minister for the Environment and Energy Josh Frydenberg.

Government support aside, it is perhaps the amount of industry based interest that indicates EVs are a viable and practical way forward. There never seems to be a week go by that a new EV venture is not underway. Recently, we heard British tycoon Sanjeev Gupta is considering using the former Holden plant in SA to build EVs.

The case for EVs continues to grow. As fleet managers we need to be actively engaged in this rapidly developing technology. It’s a matter of when not if (and the when is not far away).