ELECTRIC VEHICLES INNOVATION SPECIAL


By Iain Mason Director of Membership and Communications


Hello Willie. How many EVs do you have at ECS? Out of our fleet of seven vehicles, three are currently full EVs – two Nissan e-NV200 vans plus my own Tesla. The vans are charged overnight here at our office, so they’re ready to go for staff every morning.


How long have you been using them? We’ve had the vans since 2015, but before that we had a Renault Kangoo ZE in 2012, which was really back in the early days of EVs. We’ve also had a few hybrids along the way, which have helped staff understand the possibilities of EVs and how to drive on a charge etc.


And what made you choose EVs? Because we’re a technology company, it had a bit to do with being early adopters, but it was also because of concerns about the environment. We spend a lot of time driving through town in Edinburgh and Glasgow and a lot of the time we’re just sitting there with the engine chugging away, spewing fumes and burning expensive fuel. Also, if you go back to 2012, we were seeing really big spikes in diesel prices, so we saw it as a possible way to reduce costs.


Did you receive any grants or funding? We used an interest-free loan from the Energy Saving Trust (EST), with whom we also enjoyed extremely good engagement about business charging.


How easy was it to apply for funding? Very easy – it was only slightly more involved than going into a garage and signing a normal vehicle lease. The EST were really helpful with the process and helped us understand how to get from A to B and how long everything would take. As well as helping with EVs, they also came out and did a business assessment, which led to us replacing our air conditioning with a more efficient system that helped us reduce costs.


18 CABLEtalk FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020


Te EVs are charged up overnight at the firm’s HQ


“Getting people to actually use them is the


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find EVs perform ere was a lot of


understand how charging works. The problem is, you have your traditional driver who’s used to going to the garage once a week, so doesn’t understand overnight charging, particularly if they take the vehicle home and don’t have a domestic charge point. So there’s still some pushback in the business about distance, but we’re hoping the next round of vehicles will have even bigger batteries so thatwont be a


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m confident we’ll soon get to a point where EV


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Willie Fairhurst


Oh bo th be


a point where EVs only have to be charged on


so often, plus we’ll see more public charge po will be a big help.will be a big help


change in attitude e points, which


among your staff towards EVs? Oh yes, they’ve bought into the ethos behind it.


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