Fighting Pollution - A Major Task for Transport

For most companies the priority is to maximise profit. For some it is the only focus. Yet a company should think about the community and the environment in which it operates (in the broadest sense of the word) in order to have long term stability.

And they have to be aware and ready for changes that will happen even if they do not know exactly what the future will hold.

Global climate change has been a political football for many years and the political process appears to be the last place to try and get a rational approach to this issue. But there is a more obvious pollution issue to the “person-in-the-street” and that is the local impact of poor air quality.

In this regard low or zero polluting vehicles are already part of some government policy directions especially in city centres.

I recently drove a Hyundai Ioniq electric vehicle for a week and then sat in the car and had a chat to Scott Nagar who is Hyundai’s Manager of Future Mobility and Government Relations.

Scott and Hyundai have been talking to a wide range of people from the Prime Minster to a range of Ministers to local governments and major fleet operators.

Supporting car companies in Australia sunk into vitriol leading up to the time when local manufacturing ceased. But there is a difference between free-flowing handouts and working with car suppliers to achieve positive community benefits.

Scott is emphatic on this point.

I don't want any money for manufacturing. We've put all the money into it. We’ve spent 20 years investing in it. As a manufacturer we don't want any money for the subsidies for vehicles. If the government want to give customers subsidies to buy the vehicles, great. But where we see the biggest benefit is in infrastructure.  Now to generate infrastructure you need volumes of vehicles. There's a chicken and egg problem; what comes first a thousand cars or a couple of hundred charging stations. 

Scott has been told by the Prime Minister that there will be no policy announcements on emission regulations before the next election, which is disappointing. But the industry has to move ahead.

Scott believes that there is a strong opportunity for government fleets to take on some electric vehicles, but it is not an all or nothing situation.

We're really encouraging government fleet transition. Now whether that's Hyundai or any other manufacturers cars, government fleet transmission is the key because they have the biggest fleets in Australia, they turn those fleets over very quickly so those cars then go into the hands of moms and dads. The volume grows and then those bits of infrastructure grow. 

How much of a fleet might transition?

Some of the big government departments around Australia; look at your first two, three or four percent of your fleet and look at where the vehicles are most suitable.  So, we're here in a vehicle [Ioniq] that has 230km range. Look at where that is most suited within that government department and you may well have drivers that do a lot of kilometres every single day and they may need something with the range of Kona which is 449 kilometres. 

But really what we're trying to do is educate buyers around Australia, especially government fleet buyers that understand what your fleet is; how it's going to be used; and what technology and what battery size is best suited. Don't overspend and buy a vehicle for a range of battery you really never going use.

I live two hours away from Sydney near the Blue Mountains. So it really suits my needs every day. This is really about understanding fleets and we know territories and state government fleets around Australia where some cars are, on average, doing less than 20 to 30 kilometres a day. 

And remember if it's a fleet car, a pool car, it’s back to work every night sitting in a garage overnight.  It'll charge every night and it'll charge up on off-peak if you’ve got that at your facility.

There are further issues of creating jobs and enhancing technical development and manufacturing in Australia that we will cover at a later date.
 

by David Brown