Insider's Guide to Energy EV

35 - Accelerating Fleet Electrification: Insights from Josh Green, CEO of Inspiration Mobility

• Chris Sass, Niall Riddell, Josh Green • Season 1 • Episode 35

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In this episode of the "Insider's Guide to Energy" EV Series, hosts Chris Sass and Niall Riddell engage in a deep conversation with Josh Green, CEO of Inspiration Mobility Group. Green shares his insights on fleet electrification, emphasizing that the slow adoption of electric vehicles by commercial fleets is not due to a lack of charging infrastructure, but rather misconceptions about it. He explains how Inspiration Mobility is making fleet electrification simple by providing integrated fleet management and charging solutions, designed to reduce costs, manage risks, and accelerate the transition to electric transportation. 

Josh Green discusses the unique challenges faced by legacy fleet management companies and why an Electric Fleet Management Company (EFMC) is essential for successful electrification. He highlights how traditional fleet management models are deeply tied to internal combustion engine vehicles, creating inefficiencies when transitioning to electric. His company, Inspiration Mobility, takes a different approach by integrating modern technology, financing options, and customized charging solutions to ensure a seamless and cost-effective switch to electric vehicles. 

The episode also explores key strategies for fleet managers looking to electrify their fleets. Green stresses the importance of understanding the total cost of ownership (TCO) and conducting detailed assessments to identify vehicles ready for electrification. He explains how fleets can start small, ensure success, and expand gradually. The conversation concludes with Green's vision for the future of fleet electrification, emphasizing the need for innovative charging solutions and customized approaches to meet the growing demand for electric commercial vehicles. 

We were pleased to host: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-green-25349/ 

Visit our webiste: https://insidersguidetoenergy.com/ 

Transcript 

 

00:00:00 Josh Green 

The whole notion that a lack of charging infrastructure is responsible for slow adoption of electric vehicles by commercial fleets is a total red herring. 

00:00:10 Josh Green 

Fleet electrification is actually easy and predictable when done right and charging is not the barrier most fleets think it is. 

00:00:20 Chriss Sass 

Your trusted source for information on the energy transition. This is the insider's guide to Energy podcast. 

00:00:32 Chriss Sass 

Welcome to another edition of the Insider's Guide to Energy EV series. I'm your host Chris Sass with me is Niall Riddell, and today we have with us Josh Green, CEO of Inspiration Mobility group. Josh, welcome to the podcast. 

00:00:44 Josh Green 

Thanks, Chris. Neil, great to be here. 

00:00:47 Chriss Sass 

Well, it's a pleasure to have you on. I think it makes sense to always start and tell our audience a little bit about what it is you guys do and what's inspiration, mobile mobility group. 

00:00:56 Josh Green 

Yeah, sounds great. So Inspiration Mobility Group is an electrification accelerator and what that means is that we are an integrated provider of fleet and charging solutions. 

00:01:08 Josh Green 

All designed to simplify and accelerate the transition to electric transportation in North America. 

00:01:14 Josh Green 

So we have the world's first EF MC, which is an EV first fleet management company alongside a A turnkey developer of commercial grade charging solutions. 

00:01:26 Josh Green 

And and together those two businesses are are really making a difference in accelerating electrification of of commercial transportation and. 

00:01:35 Josh Green 

Seats and and we solve all their problems, reduce risk, reduce costs and make it a very easy thing to inflate electric vehicles. 

00:01:44 Niall Riddell 

So this is super exciting. Finding a dedicated electric vehicle fleet management company, but it's the market actually big enough for. 

00:01:51 Niall Riddell 

This. 

00:01:52 Josh Green 

Yeah. In fact, we think the market is enormous for this. The time is right for an E FM C to help fleets because interest in going electric has never been higher, partly driven by emerging regulation. 

00:02:05 Josh Green 

In in states like California, New York, Massachusetts, the EV's are are beginning to be required in certain types of fleets. 

00:02:15 Josh Green 

But also being driven by the state of electric vehicles and and and the the costs, the lower operating costs, the maturity of the technology, many fleets have committed to going electric for those reasons or for sustainability reasons. And so we see an enormous uptick in interest in. 

00:02:35 Josh Green 

In going electric and the commercial vehicle market is a lot larger than most people think. So in the US, the commercial vehicle market ranges from you see estimates ranging from 9 million commercial vehicles on the streets to 19. 

00:02:48 Josh Green 

Million very large number of vehicles, every type of asset class you can think of if you if you kind of look out the window and and on the street many more commercial vehicles than you might realize when you start seeing branded vans going by last mile delivery flower delivery service fleets like mechanical contractors and and. 

00:03:08 Josh Green 

And pest control companies. And then you've got heavy duty. 

00:03:12 Josh Green 

Seats, you know, Class 8 tractors that are that are on the highways, you've got taxis, rideshare vehicles. So it's a it is an enormous opportunity and enormous opportunity both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which which transportation accounts for roughly a third of our greenhouse gas emissions in the US and. 

00:03:32 Josh Green 

To to have an impact on on fleet operating costs and safety. And so we see it as an enormous opportunity right now. 

00:03:41 Chriss Sass 

Help me understand is fleet management has been around forever. Fleets have been around a long time. You just described the size of it's a huge market, why the need for an EFC or electronic fleet management? Why isn't just this just become an extension of the fleet management that's already in place because there's a lot of folks that have jobs, running fleets and. 

00:04:02 Chriss Sass 

There's a lot of software. 

00:04:03 Chriss Sass 

Already it's, you know, lots of money in this space already. How come we need new software to do this? 

00:04:08 Josh Green 

Yeah, it's a good question. I wouldn't. I wouldn't categorize it as new software because it's actually an entirely new business model and value chain for an electric vehicle. So. So let's go back and look at what we call legacy FMC. So so the, the, the legacy fleet management companies that exist today. 

00:04:25 Josh Green 

Many of these companies have been around for decades. I think the first one was launched probably about 100 years ago and these are companies that effectively do in some ways business process outsourcing, right, for companies that have. 

00:04:39 Josh Green 

Take home sales fleets. They have van fleets to to deliver goods and services. Those companies don't want to own their their vehicles. Typically they treat the vehicle in the same way. They might treat a computer for an employee or or a a cell phone. It's it's an employee tool, right? It's a tool for the. 

00:04:58 Josh Green 

Employee to do the job. 

00:04:59 Josh Green 

But those FMCS, which lease vehicles. 

00:05:03 Josh Green 

And provide services like maintenance and title and registration and accident management. 

00:05:08 Josh Green 

Those FMC's have been. 

00:05:09 Josh Green 

Optimized over decades around the internal combustion engine so. 

00:05:15 Josh Green 

What does that mean? That means that First off, 50 to 60% of their revenues come from services, not not from leasing the vehicle, but from services that attached to the vehicle and over 50% of those services are directly tied to the internal combustion engine. Think of the the the two most prominent being maintenance oil changes and and other maintenance. 

00:05:35 Josh Green 

On the on the engine. 

00:05:36 Josh Green 

Itself. 

00:05:37 Josh Green 

As well as fuel and so. So those FMC's take a cut of every time some a a fleet driver is filling up the gas tank. They're taking a cut. 

00:05:46 Josh Green 

Of that and. 

00:05:47 Josh Green 

So it's a huge part of the. 

00:05:49 Josh Green 

Similarly, their financing models in terms of how they finance, purchase and finance and lease. 

00:05:55 Josh Green 

Vehicles have all been optimized around the internal combustion engine, where residual values are very statistically known and and and at this point understood. 

00:06:07 Josh Green 

And where there are no complications coming from, for example, a A. 

00:06:11 Josh Green 

Federal tax credit. 

00:06:12 Josh Green 

That's that is available only on electric vehicle. 

00:06:16 Josh Green 

And then you add in charging, right? Charging is the in some ways the the the linchpin of a successful electrification effort and fleet management companies have never had to deal with the fueling of the vehicle beyond providing a fuel card for someone to pull into a shell or BP or Exxon station. 

00:06:35 Josh Green 

Fueling has been, for all intents and purposes, a public good. The driver drives off and they can fuel up anywhere. Now charging is something that for a commercial fleet to to electrify, they have to understand. In many cases they have to put in. 

00:06:50 Josh Green 

Themselves, fleet management companies were not built to do that. They don't understand it well. They typically outsourced to one provider that you know their their ability to really design and implement custom solutions that fleets need is very limited. So from day one, we set out to build a different type of fleet management company and. 

00:07:11 Josh Green 

Efmc specifically built to maximize the benefits of the electric vehicle and reduce the risks, and so that combines charging. It combines tax credit, subsidized lease. 

00:07:24 Josh Green 

And it combines services that help vehicles charge at home and and know when to charge and where to charge. And so. 

00:07:32 Josh Green 

It's. 

00:07:33 Josh Green 

And it's all built on a modern tech platform, which is very different than the traditional legacy FMC's, which are mostly running off of, you know, AS400 mainframes from the 70s. 

00:07:44 Josh Green 

And so for all those reasons. 

00:07:47 Josh Green 

We've. 

00:07:48 Josh Green 

Rapidly established that if you're serious about going electric, you really need an EFC to help you. 

00:07:54 Niall Riddell 

So when you introduce the size of the fleet market, you talked about cost and as you run through some of the specific characteristics of your efmc capability, we've talked a little bit about some of those elements that contribute to what fleet managers look at, total cost of ownership. How are you helping them get that TCO model really optimized to get them valued so that they can? 

00:08:14 Niall Riddell 

Make that transition as quickly as possible. 

00:08:18 Josh Green 

Yeah, great question. And it's one of the first things we do when we're talking to a fleet, so, so many fleets, you know we we kind of categorize fleets, they're in different stages of what we call their electrification journey, right. There are people. There are fleets that are what I would call Evie. Curious, right? They don't yet have an electric vehicle. They've heard about this electrification thing. They think maybe it would work. 

00:08:39 Josh Green 

Maybe the fleet managers getting some pressure from from senior management to do something to reduce emissions. 

00:08:44 Josh Green 

But they really. 

00:08:46 Josh Green 

Are starting from scratch and the main question they're asking is will an electric vehicle work for me, you know? 

00:08:52 Josh Green 

Stop. There are other companies that have tried electric vehicles have had either some success, some failures. In many cases, they've done a pilot, but it stopped there for them, you know, they are saying, well, OK, electrification has worked in some capacity. Will it work for the rest of my fleet? How can I go faster? And so in all those? 

00:09:12 Josh Green 

Cases you know, we often begin our engagement with the customer with something we call an easy opportunity assessment and that is a free assessment. 

00:09:21 Josh Green 

It's a free tool we do. 

00:09:23 Josh Green 

To first engage the fleet and and say let's give us your fleet data. Let us understand what types of assets you have, what types of routes they drive, how many, how many you know hours, does it sit and and is it on the roads, kind of the duty cycle where it lives at night. 

00:09:40 Josh Green 

And we will come back to you with analysis that says of your entire fleet of. 

00:09:46 Josh Green 

50 vehicles or or 50,000 vehicles here are the ones where EV's make sense today, and we do have primarily based on three different factors. One, there is an there is there is an EV avail. 

00:10:00 Josh Green 

With the right range, the right payload, and in fact the right climate adjusted range payload adjusted range to do the job that you need done. 

00:10:08 Josh Green 

You know and and that you're doing with that ice vehicle. 

00:10:10 Josh Green 

That's number one. Number two is cost. 

00:10:13 Josh Green 

By adopting that EV and putting it into the fleet in, in, in lieu of that ICE vehicle, will it save you money? Will it be, as you said, you know TCO at least neutral? Ideally it's it's saving money relative to the to the internal combustion engine. 

00:10:29 Josh Green 

And 3rd is charging is the right charging solution knowable and easy to install and do we know the costs, the rough cost? So can we include those in the TCO analysis? 

00:10:40 Josh Green 

And and and showing you know the the right. 

00:10:43 Josh Green 

And complete TCO analysis. So we run those three tests basically on every vehicle in the fleet and we quickly identify the ones you know here are the ones that that really should be electric today for, for those vehicles, you are losing money every day, you're driving an ice vehicle on that route. 

00:11:01 Josh Green 

And it's something it's usually pretty powerful analysis and and visualization for fleets because where whereas they may come in saying, you know, I think this may be 3% of my fleet could be electric. 

00:11:13 Josh Green 

We often leave saying, well, actually 50% of your fleet could be electric today and and let us you know as a next step we'll plan for when you might electrify the rest of those. But here's what you should be doing today and and what's achievable. And we always saying, you know, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We see a lot of fleet managers who are kind of sitting on their hands. 

00:11:33 Josh Green 

And they seem to be saying I will engage with electrification when it can electrify every vehicle in my fleet. 

00:11:41 Josh Green 

And and and we say look, there are plenty of vehicles where EV's work today where they'll save you money. They're safer. They're better. Driver experience. Do what you can do and let us identify the constraints on those other vehicles and work on those over time to get you to a fully electric fleet over over a number of years. 

00:12:03 Niall Riddell 

Josh, one of the things we see here in the UK is a real collapse in the residual. 

00:12:07 Niall Riddell 

Value of vehicles. 

00:12:09 Niall Riddell 

Is that something you're experiencing, and how do you treat it? You know, what are what are the risks that it means for your business or what are the risks it means for the fleets that you work with? 

00:12:17 Josh Green 

Yeah. Yeah, good question. So so we talk a lot about residual values and and the first thing that I usually say is that when people start talking about residual values for the most part, they're talking about light duty vehicles. So. So when we look at commercial fleets, we usually segment a little bit the the. 

00:12:36 Josh Green 

The mechanics and data between light duty vehicles, medium duty and heavy duty, the light duty vehicles is where there's the longest track record right, largely starting with Tesla. But now we have years with many models, makes and models on the. 

00:12:52 Josh Green 

Code and that is where I think that's that's certainly what the general press writes about as well. Is kind of the light duty vehicles and residual values falling. We get asked about that a lot I usually say. 

00:13:07 Josh Green 

I usually start with two things. One is that I think we are past a unique and unprecedented time in residual value volatility for electric vehicles. And I say that because over the. 

00:13:21 Josh Green 

Last few years. 

00:13:22 Josh Green 

Those residual values did have a substantial collapse, but largely driven by two factors. 

00:13:28 Josh Green 

1. 

00:13:30 Josh Green 

Was the somewhat surprising and and one might say random price movements of one manufacturer, Tesla, who for a long time was really the only. 

00:13:42 Josh Green 

Manufacture at scale of light duty, proven electric vehicles, and so there was a time of unprecedented run ups in those prices where they twice or three times adjusted pricing up on the Tesla Model Y, the Tesla Model 3, the Tesla Model Y at one point was was you know. 

00:14:02 Josh Green 

Selling for in the sixty $60,000 range and above. 

00:14:08 Josh Green 

And then soon thereafter, as more makes and models came out in terms of there being a wider array of of EV's and and and other OEM's ramped up production, Tesla pretty rapidly cut its prices another two or three times. And so that kind of one time up and down is something that we don't expect to see again, it's something that was really I think. 

00:14:30 Josh Green 

One time event they took advantage of the fact that that they were alone in in the market and now they have to compete and and so price movements over the. 

00:14:38 Josh Green 

Last. 

00:14:39 Josh Green 

Call it 18 months. Two years have been significantly lower in terms of, you know, adjusting that that. 

00:14:46 Josh Green 

New car purchase price. The second thing that's happened is obviously hurts the the the disposition of of the Hertz inventory where they bought, you know 100,000 EV's and then had to pretty quickly dump them into the market. That has had a big impact and we don't really see that happening again. 

00:15:06 Josh Green 

Either they, they they they were by large, by far the largest purchaser of EV's for a period of time, and then all of a sudden they flooded the market with, with with a lot of used vehicles. So we're kind of beginning to get past that. Our head of fleet operations here at inspiration who tracks all of these things. 

00:15:24 Josh Green 

That. 

00:15:26 Josh Green 

EV residual values are beginning to become more predictable and get back into a normal cycle. 

00:15:32 Josh Green 

And so for our business that has had very little impact. Partly that's because most of the leases we do are what's what's known as a track lease where our customer bears that residual value risk. But it certainly we know many companies that did get caught out that had a closed end lease where they held on to that residual value risk and we're we're banking on it being a certain. 

00:15:54 Josh Green 

Amount and then and then it was a lot less than they thought. But the other thing I would say is that for most commercial fleets, not every, but for most commercial fleets. 

00:16:03 Josh Green 

They they utilize vehicles for generally a longer period of time, SO4 or 5-6 years for for light duty vehicles. It's usually four or five. 

00:16:15 Josh Green 

In that time period, we think residual values will will revert to being somewhat predictable, so so many of them even. 

00:16:21 Josh Green 

If. 

00:16:22 Josh Green 

The the actual carrying cost of the vehicle today, the fair market value of the vehicle today. 

00:16:27 Josh Green 

Way would be lower than where they thought it would be, or where we thought it would be when we wrote the lease by the end of the lease. We think those things will catch up and they'll they'll be, you know, more or less where it where it should be. So those things that those residual values tend to normalize over time. 

00:16:44 Josh Green 

A large and growing supply of used EV. 

00:16:48 Josh Green 

At affordable prices is a great thing for the market. It's great for consumers. It's also great for our customers who are looking at some of the customers that we work with will take and and used EV. A lightly used EV and they can take advantage therefore of a lower cost of entry to get into an EV. And that just makes the. 

00:17:08 Josh Green 

That, that TCO, that total cost of ownership analysis we talked about earlier of an EV relative to a nice vehicle, all that all that much better for the EV. So we think it's a great thing that that EV's are becoming more affordable generally. 

00:17:24 Niall Riddell 

So do you see the cost as a key barrier to fleet electrification or is it something else that sits in the way of us transitioning faster into commercial electric vehicles? 

00:17:37 Josh Green 

Yeah. Well, that that really gets at the heart of why we started the company right back in 2020 and 2021. We started in the very beginning of 2021 and I started thinking about this idea in 2020. 

00:17:49 Josh Green 

And at the time I looked around and and said well, commercial vehicle technology for electric vehicles has has has hit the point at which there's no longer appreciable technology risk like the batteries have proven again largely on the back of Tesla over over a decade that. 

00:18:09 Josh Green 

The EV is simply a better vehicle in many applications. If you get if if you get all. 

00:18:15 Josh Green 

The pieces right? 

00:18:16 Josh Green 

So I looked around, said well, why are more vehicles on the streets not electric? And it came down to two factors. One is the higher upfront cost, so as you. 

00:18:24 Josh Green 

And. 

00:18:25 Josh Green 

EVs today typically still have a Cos delta in the upfront cost relative to an equivalent ice vehicle. The second issue is charging, so there is a perception that charging is complex, that it takes a lot of time, that maybe it's more expensive to put in. 

00:18:45 Josh Green 

And and even. 

00:18:49 Josh Green 

If you can disprove those, those points of view. 

00:18:53 Josh Green 

They're still way too few fleet managers. In fact, I'd say very few who come out of an energy background and and and can understand charging. And you know, without doing substantial research and education. And so I think that those were the two factors. It was it was a higher upfront cost and wow, there's this whole. 

00:19:13 Josh Green 

Who? 

00:19:14 Josh Green 

Discipline. I need to learn to understand how to fuel these vehicles and and and that seems difficult. It seems complex and that's frankly why we launched the company which was to bring into under one roof, people who come out of both fleet and energy. So we can provide an integrated solution and to solve the higher upfront cost issue partly. 

00:19:34 Josh Green 

By monetizing every incentive available, so that includes the the, the 45 W federal tax credit in the United States for an electric vehicle. It includes every type of incentive. Different states have tax credits, different cities have. 

00:19:49 Josh Green 

Have incentives and subsidies and rebates. Different OEM's have rebates, so how do we take advantage of all those? Make sure the customer gets the benefit of every available incentive. 

00:19:59 Josh Green 

And how do we make charging? 

00:20:01 Josh Green 

A A a non factor. How do we how to make it so easy that it it feels the same as throwing the keys to the driver and letting them find the nearest you know Exxon or Mobil station. So that's what we set out to do and and and I think that higher upfront. 

00:20:16 Josh Green 

Cost. 

00:20:18 Josh Green 

Is still a perceived barrier, but I think rapidly becoming a non issue, particularly with with commercial fleets which which are sophisticated enough to do the total cost of ownership and think about the total life cycle of the vehicle over multiple years opposed to just what's my monthly payment. 

00:20:37 Chriss Sass 

Do fleets want to stick their toe in the water and is that possible to get the economies of scale so you know, do I buy just a couple of EV's and have, let's say, my high driving sales people drive them for a little bit? For some people in the company, does that model really pan out or is it? 

00:20:54 Chriss Sass 

Better just to dive in and go big and hope for the. 

00:20:57 Josh Green 

Best. Well, I definitely would not encourage anybody to hope for the best. This is this is a this is a complex undertaking and and we call ourselves a systems integrator because one of the things you have to do is is, is get all the pieces right, you have to pick the right vehicle for the right routes and duty cycle. 

00:21:14 Josh Green 

You got to find the right charging. You don't want to be relying on public charging that that we always call that the option of last resort for commercial fleets. So. So let's take hope for the best off the table that, that, that is not a good strategy. I think hope is not a strategy as they say. 

00:21:30 Josh Green 

Where we typically start is is, as I mentioned that every opportunity assessment. 

00:21:36 Josh Green 

And and as I said, that often identifies many more vehicles than the fleet manager was thinking they they were thinking, oh, maybe I'll try pilot 40 vehicles and we say, well, actually 500 of your vehicles could be electric, should be electric. And then usually what we see Chris, is that the first orders and the first adoption is somewhere between those two numbers, right? They don't go all in and go 500 day. 

00:21:58 Josh Green 

And. 

00:21:59 Josh Green 

But I think more and more companies are saying, well, let's do what we can do like we need to get drivers used to it. We need to get our internal, you know depots used to it where they're going. 

00:22:11 Josh Green 

To park. 

00:22:12 Josh Green 

If we have to, if many of those vehicles are, as you mentioned, sales vehicles that go home with an employee at night, they got to get a charger. 

00:22:19 Josh Green 

Any employee, home or find an alternative to that which which we can. 

00:22:23 Josh Green 

Help them with. 

00:22:25 Josh Green 

So it is. It is a. It is definitely not advisable to just kind of go all in and do every vehicle or try it. 

00:22:32 Josh Green 

All at once. 

00:22:33 Chriss Sass 

But let me like clarify a little bit what are some milestones maybe that you would set up. So if you come in and say, OK, great, you know we got these 40 vehicles we're going to put them online, you potentially have 500 vehicles in your fleet that could be electrified. 

00:22:34 

Please. 

00:22:45 Chriss Sass 

What are the kind of milestones you recommend to a client to look at and say OK, well, you know here here we did this so you should be comfortable enough to move to this point. What? What are some of those things that folks look at as a tipping point to really? 

00:22:58 Josh Green 

Go further in. Yeah, I'll give. I'll give a few examples. I mean, the the first thing is. 

00:23:04 Josh Green 

The the very first wave of EV's from any fleets these days is driven by compliance, right compliance with emerging California regulations, advanced clean fleets and and regulation that's pending in in a bunch of other states have said they're going to adopt the California standards. So that is number one like like we are working with companies. 

00:23:24 Josh Green 

There next year, starting January 1st, 2025, they have to have 10% of their eligible vehicles. Certain vehicle classes electric and they get fined if those vehicles are not electric. And so that's number one is let's let's identify those and make sure we get those transitioned on time. 

00:23:42 Josh Green 

2nd is part of the point of the EV opportunity assessment is is identifying what we call kind of the no brainers right? These are the easy ones. These are the ones where they can comfortably do the job. Charging is is easy to install, so we're not going to encounter headaches on that or or surprises. 

00:24:02 Josh Green 

And and we help them select literally the driver that drives a certain route that that, you know, hauls a certain amount of payload to make sure that those drivers have the best possible experience. So I think. 

00:24:17 Josh Green 

We want we we are trying to get them to go as fast as possible but. 

00:24:22 Josh Green 

Never having a hiccup, and that involves staging it. There's a big part of this is that we call change management, right, which is getting the drivers used to driving an EV, getting around range anxiety, so to speak. So so I'm not sure it's. I'm not sure I can give you a a road map specifically because what we what we say. 

00:24:43 Josh Green 

Every fleet is a snowflake, right? Every. 

00:24:45 Josh Green 

Thing is different and we have to design that with the fleet manager. But I think what we're looking for. 

00:24:52 Josh Green 

Are the easy. 

00:24:53 Josh Green 

Wins the obvious wins where we're going to have a great experience and that's everything from identifying some of the drivers that want them to start with. Now we have fleet managers who actually, I'll say two more comments on this. We have fleet managers that. 

00:25:06 Josh Green 

Actually want to try. 

00:25:07 Josh Green 

Right. 

00:25:08 Josh Green 

A number of different types of assets, so they say alright, I want to do 25 light duty. I want to do 25 cargo vans. I want to do 25 of the medium duty like box trucks because I actually want to get experience with all those. 

00:25:21 Josh Green 

And we've had some free managers say, I don't actually. 

00:25:23 Josh Green 

Want to start? 

00:25:24 Josh Green 

Only with drivers that say in a survey they want me. VI wanted to have half the do and half the don't because again I want to. I want to get experience with how you know can I overcome objections with somebody who maybe isn't, you know, opting in. And at first blush to an EV. So we help them design that strategy. 

00:25:41 Josh Green 

Everything's. 

00:25:41 Josh Green 

But but the the the fundamental point is let's make sure they have an excellent experience all the way through, so that you know that they're we address those sometimes perceived fears that aren't that aren't real. 

00:26:00 Niall Riddell 

So this this for me is quite interesting because we're starting to see blockers in some UK fleets who've adopted early commercial vehicles and they're now getting into what we're describing as maybe the harder to treat very. 

00:26:12 

Rules. 

00:26:13 Niall Riddell 

Yeah, often we get statements like vans are the poor cousins of the car. You know, it's it's easy to do your car fleet conversion. It's harder to do your van fleet conversion. Do you see the automotive manufacturers doing enough to bring makes and models and vehicle types to market? 

00:26:30 Josh Green 

Yeah. Well, I think that that that is a great example with the cargo vans in particular, I think. 

00:26:35 Josh Green 

As I mentioned before, talking about fleet vehicles it there's a massive diversity of vehicle and use case within commercial fleets, right? Everything from again Class 8, like drayage trucks taking goods from ports to taxis and rideshare vehicles and everything in between. 

00:26:54 Josh Green 

So on the light duty side, there is now a very wide selection of makes models, price points, range ranges, form factors we see in cargo vans for a while there was one manufacturer really it was, it was the Ford Transit. 

00:27:09 Josh Green 

And now this year, there's four or five different variants, and that range from the, you know what I would call light duty. 

00:27:15 Josh Green 

Van to more of a medium duty van. 

00:27:18 Josh Green 

And so I think the product proliferation is now out there where most fleets that operate those types of vehicles can at least substitute a a wide variety of their ice vehicles for, for EV's with with no disruption whatsoever, I think. 

00:27:35 Josh Green 

On the heavy duty side, there's still very limited production, so that is 1 area that I think still vehicle selection availability and definitely vehicle price at least in the US is limiting adoption. And where I think OEM's still still can do more in terms of ramping up production, lowering prices. 

00:27:56 Josh Green 

But I I I do think that there's always, as you said, Neil, there's always easy to electrify parts of fleet and harder to electrify parts. I don't. 

00:28:09 Josh Green 

Typically distinguish between those being necessarily the asset type, so I'm not sure it's harder to electrify a cargo van than than a passenger car. 

00:28:20 Josh Green 

Just because it's a cargo van, I think it has to do with again the use case and where it goes and. 

00:28:26 Josh Green 

How? How far it's driven? 

00:28:28 Josh Green 

But but the OEM's, I think that are doing a pretty good job now of ramping production and adding supply of vehicles that have different levels of batteries and and and and price points. 

00:28:40 Niall Riddell 

So. 

00:28:40 Niall Riddell 

A conversation like this is not complete if you don't talk a bit about charging. You've mentioned it a couple of times as we've gone through this call, we've talked about where public charging is, maybe not the desirable outcome for a fleet operator and therefore you know there are certain solutions that are in place and the. 

00:28:56 Niall Riddell 

Marketplace what do you do to support your customers with charging? Do you focus 100% on depot? Do you look at home charging? How do you manage some of that complexity of your customers? 

00:29:07 Josh Green 

Yeah, I think it's an important differentiator. 

00:29:11 Josh Green 

Actually for us. 

00:29:13 Josh Green 

I think we are alone in the market, frankly. 

00:29:16 Josh Green 

In terms of offering a comprehensive charging solution that can cover every vehicle and every engagement model with the fleet and what I mean by that is, let's start with the charging type, right as we talked. 

00:29:28 Josh Green 

The most fleets are either using level 2 overnight charging so the vehicle resides long enough, 8 hours 10 hours at an overnight charger and it does not need to top up during the day right? That overnight charge is sufficient for its duty cycle during the day. 

00:29:45 Josh Green 

Then Level 3 charges are are higher speed charges that you need for either much bigger batteries or duty cycles where you need others. They they they're going too far to fulfill the total daily driving on one charge and so. 

00:29:59 Josh Green 

They top up during. 

00:30:03 Josh Green 

We we can do any of that and we can do it wherever it makes sense. And So what I mean by. 

00:30:08 Josh Green 

That. 

00:30:08 Josh Green 

Is. 

00:30:10 Josh Green 

There there are take home vehicle where we can chart. We can install a Level 2 charger, an employee home. We can electrify a company depot where the vehicles reside. 

00:30:20 Josh Green 

Day, although there are challenges, they're often depending on one whether the company owns or leases that property, and two, how easy it is to get, you know, to get the power and and and to install those. 

00:30:32 Josh Green 

Mergers. We can also match them with an off-site depot, so there are. 

00:30:39 Josh Green 

We have a we have a pretty comprehensive list of of off-site charging, the bills being built around the country and ones that are already operating. And if one of our fleets happens to have a bunch of drivers nearby, one of those depots that's either available or coming online, we can help them reserve capacity and make sure their their vehicles have a have a have a. 

00:30:58 Josh Green 

We also offer something that we call a a multi fleet charging hub. Our name for that is we call it a power up point where actually for some of our customers we can build on their property. 

00:31:13 Josh Green 

A high speed charging the boat to both charge their vehicles and then when their vehicles aren't using it to offer that charging to other vehicles in the community and other fleets in the community and it and it. And it takes charging from a pure cost Center for the fleet to actually revenue generator because they're offering that charging infrastructure to others. 

00:31:33 Josh Green 

And so that's something we do with with fleets as well. You know again it depends on land availability and location and and and and the fleet need. But but we are really the only ones that span the waterfront there and and will implement the custom solution. And and last thing I'll say on that is the engagement model itself. 

00:31:53 Josh Green 

Matters, some fleets say. 

00:31:56 Josh Green 

I will. I'm going to own this infrastructure. It's at my site, but I don't want to. 

00:32:00 Josh Green 

Pay. 

00:32:00 Josh Green 

For it so. So I'd like you to help me pay for it. Others say, you know what I don't. 

00:32:04 Josh Green 

Want to touch it? I don't know. 

00:32:05 Josh Green 

Enough. Can you do what's called charging as a service and I'll. I'll sign a fuel contract back to your point, Chris, about fuel prices. I'll sign a fuel contract that says I'm going to pay you this much per year. 

00:32:18 Josh Green 

For fuel, but you build own, operate it, finance it and and we do that as well. And that can vary by location within a within a complex fleet. 

00:32:28 Josh Green 

We we've covered. 

00:32:29 Chriss Sass 

A lot of material in a short period of time, we've gone everywhere from the vehicles and market adoption to charging Josh. This has been a fascinating conversation. I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's been a pleasure. 

00:32:43 Josh Green 

Thank you guys. Always enjoy talking about this and and enjoy the good questions. 

00:32:48 Chriss Sass 

For our audience who enjoy Insider’s Guide to Energy EV series, we encourage the dialogue to continue in the chat. Follow us on our YouTube channel, subscribe and add comments like it, share it with your friends and we'll see you again next time on the Insider’s Guide to Energy EV. Bye for now.