Australia sits on the cusp of an electric vehicle revolution and McMillan Shakespeare Group (MMSG) are planning ahead with the appointment of Nick Demetrios as General Manager of EV Infrastructure. Fleet EV News caught up with him for a chat to understand what the future holds for Fleet Managers planning the transition to zero emission vehicles.
From the start of the discussion it’s clear that the plan is to make charging an EV a normal part of the daily routine. Demetrios explained that it should be like charging a mobile phone with no change to your lifestyle and minimal cost to implement.
“Our research and data analysis has told us that 80% of the charging for electric vehicles will be done at home. So to make it easy for our fleet customers we’re developing a product that will take away the angst of installing charging infrastructure in employee’s homes,” says Demetrios.
Demetrios has worked with McMillian Shakespeare for six years and started his work life as an electrician which makes him uniquely qualified for the role.
The product development team have been working with the leading manufacturers of EV chargers and software developers to create a product that monitors the electrical load of the home and only takes excess capacity to recharge the vehicle.
“Our goal is to create a very simple solution that connects to our fleet management system and using timed and dynamic load management, where the software will work with the existing electrical switchboard, to avoid any additional costs.”
Testing is currently being done by McMillian Shakespeare employees as it transitions the internal fleet to electric vehicles.
Once completed Demetrios hopes to offer Interleasing fleet customers, and Maxxia novated lease drivers, a simple solution that manages reimbursements for electricity taken from the home, and allows drivers to recharge using public charge stations when required.
It may sound trite, but vehicle supply is the number one thing holding fleets back from a faster transition, however even with the low EV sales volume and a rollout of home charging solutions, public infrastructure will play a major part in the future.
As an electrician, Demetrios accepts the constraints of the electricity grid but believes DC Fast Chargers will play an important part in the transition.
“Fast Chargers at key destinations in metro and regional areas will give people confidence and compliment home charging,” says Demetrios. “With the recent increase in new EV sales, the current public charging network is getting busier which is causing reliability issues.”
“We’re still working on the data with our customers to understand the average daily distances for fleet vehicles, though a 300km range should be enough which can be covered by overnight charging at home.”
We asked Demetrios to predict the impact to EV demand with fleet and novated lease customers if the Federal government follows through with its election promise to make them FBT exempt. Like most in the industry he was waiting to see the final policy before dusting off the crystal ball.
