For years, councils across Australia have set ambitious net zero targets. But 2025 feels different. At the inaugural Fleet EV Expo for Local Government, the conversations shifted from “Should we?” to “How fast can we get this done?”
That urgency comes with complexity. Local government fleets are broad, operationally critical, politically sensitive, and often under-resourced. Electrifying them is one of the biggest operational transformations councils will attempt in the next decade.
According to Marc Sibbald, Director – Fleet at IPWEA, the challenge is daunting—but entirely achievable if councils follow the right sequence of steps.
“This is the next steps session,” he told attendees. “You’re going back to work tomorrow. The emails will be there. The phone calls will be there. What do you actually do next?”
Below is a structured roadmap based on Sibbald’s guidance to attendees, grounded in the IPWEA Plant and Vehicle Management Manual (PVMM) and best-practice fleet asset management.
1. Start With the Foundation: A Fleet Asset Management Plan
Every council wants to cut emissions. But many still haven’t completed the essential first step: a Fleet Asset Management Plan.
“From a council Fleet Manager’s perspective, an asset management plan is where you should start. If you have an asset management plan, it should include an electric vehicle transition or a plan for sustainability.”
Marc Sibbald
A Fleet Asset Management Plan:
- Aligns fleet decisions to service delivery needs
- Allows councils to justify expenditure
- Creates an evidence base for EV transition
- Demonstrates governance and accountability
- Ties directly into the recognised ISO 55000 standard
And crucially, it establishes credibility.
“If you’ve got an asset management plan based on the ISO standard, you’ve all of a sudden got credibility—and you’re bringing a well thought out strategic document to the discussion on net zero.”
This is exactly why the IPWEA PVMM is built on ISO 55000 principles. It gives councils a clear methodology for planning, operating, and transitioning their fleets in a structured, defendable way.
2. Establish Your Baseline Emissions
Once the plan is in place, the next step is to understand where the fleet stands today.
“You need to know where you’re at in order to know whether the steps you’re taking are an improvement,” Sibbald said, emphasising the practicality of using fuel card data to quickly build a baseline.
For many councils, this is simpler than it sounds.
“Getting fuel card data is pretty easy for most people. Times it by the CO₂ factor and suddenly using an Excel spreadsheet, you’ve got a baseline report for your fleet asset management plan.”
This baseline becomes the reference point for:
- Setting emissions-reduction targets
- Building transition timelines
- Prioritising high-impact vehicle types
- Reporting progress annually
Without a baseline, a council cannot measure success, secure funding, or justify investment.
3. Conduct a Fleet Utilisation and Duty-Cycle Review
Before buying any EVs, councils must understand what their vehicles actually do. This includes:
- Daily distance travelled
- Overnight parking location
- Vehicle utilisation and duplication
- Job requirements and service level needs
Sibbald reminded attendees that most councils have more vehicles than required.
“Most fleets have 20–30% more vehicles than they actually need. It grows over time and no one is asking the right questions”
Right-sizing the fleet not only reduces emissions—it frees up budget for EV infrastructure and high-value transition work.
4. Design the Charging Strategy (Not the Other Way Around)
Several panel discussions during the Fleet EV Expo for Local Government highlighted that councils consistently overestimate the charging infrastructure they need. Sibbald outlined the logic:
“All you need to know is how many kWh the council fleet uses each day. A similar concept to fuel consumption. When you have this, you can work out how much power is required and plan the right amount and size of chargers.”
Key charging strategy principles:
- Base charging on duty cycle, not guesswork
- Map overnight parking using telematics—or manual depot checks
- Avoid one-charger-per-vehicle thinking
- Recognise that most council vehicles only need slow AC charging
- Prioritise depots with high utilisation
Charging infrastructure is a capital-intensive decision. Doing it in the wrong order is expensive. Doing it based on data is transformative.
5. Build a Staff Engagement Plan
Sibbald told the audience the truth fleet managers don’t like to admit – “The hardest part of an EV transition is people.”
Not technology. Not cost. Not infrastructure. It’s the people.
Staff engagement must:
- Address range anxiety
- Provide EV training and inductions
- Support behaviour change
- Manage misinformation
- Give drivers time to adjust
- Include HR, comms, legal, facilities, and sustainability teams
6. And Finally… Buy the Vehicles
This was Sibbald’s closing message – “Buying a car is the last thing you do in an EV transition plan.”
Most fleets do the reverse—they buy an EV first, then scramble to make it work. That often leads to:
- Low utilisation
- Driver resistance
- Wrong vehicle selection
- Infrastructure gaps
- Poor ROI
- EVs sitting unused in pool fleets
By following the correct sequence, councils avoid those mistakes. As Sibbald put it:
“By the time you get to buy a car, you won’t be saying ‘there’s no dual-cab electric ute on the market.’ You’ll realise you probably don’t need one.”
The Message for 2026 and Beyond
The councils that succeed with fleet electrification will be those that:
- Review and update their asset management plans
- Lift their fleet management maturity
- Follow a structured, ISO-aligned processes
- Base decisions on data, not emotion
- Engage their drivers and other stakeholders early
- Build charging strategies based on the fleet activity
- Treat EV transition as organisational change—not just a vehicle purchase
For councils aiming to hit their net zero targets, this is the roadmap. The work is significant, but the path is clear—and it starts with getting the fundamentals right.
