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Capital Fleet Solutions
doing in terms of meeting these kinds of regulations.
“In my view, Government targets aren’t achievable unless a charging solution is developed for people without driveways or those that live in challenging environments for a set charge point (eg flats, on street parking without allocated spaces, or in cities that don’t have many charge points). You’re effectively asking people who don’t have these facilities to spend additional time at a remote site charging their vehicles, which at the end of a tiring day adds in another layer of complication. For drainage technicians, who would quite reasonably use a whole battery charge in a day, charging remotely is also more expensive than at home (as the charge points need to be maintained) and may not always work. If they don’t work, you’re either driving around for hours finding another charge point, or missing your next day of work as you don’t have any charge. That’s just not sustainable with the current infrastructure in place.
“Everyone would like to run electric vehicles but currently entry costs are far higher than the equivalent petrol/diesel version with no adequate charging facilities – big changes are far off in the distance. Everyone loves the idea of electric vehicles and the savings they could potentially make in charging vs fuel costs. To be honest, at the moment I can’t see these changes happening anywhere in the near future for the reasons above, but also due to the high entry cost of owning an electric vehicle. If you have an established franchise, you
20 | October 2023 |
www.draintraderltd.com
may feel this is less of an issue, but for sole traders or those starting out, the option of paying thousands more for an electric vehicle now against a petrol or diesel isn’t really there. Yes, you can save more in the long term, but the cost to set up a new business can require a large initial outlay, and adding more in at that stage can be too much for some. So, I don’t see this move changing the sector in the foreseeable future. For us, financing for electric vehicles is coming along now (five or so years ago it was so hard to finance an electric vehicle as the residuals were really untested so no one wanted to touch them). Having said this, I still don’t see it changing our practice, other than continuing to work with our trusted providers to make sure that we have access to the best finance deals for
these kinds of vehicles. We’re seeing higher monthly payments for electric vehicle finances, again due to the newness of these kinds of vehicles, so we’re expecting these to come down as the first vehicles of this kind continue to age.”
Dawsongroup is an asset rental business across the supply chain and recently launched an electric chassis gully emptier. Managing Director Glen Carruthers commented:
“As a business we have committed to a Carbon Reduction Plan which outlines we will achieve Net Zero by 2040 for emissions we directly control, and Net Zero by 2050 for external emissions we can influence. As a hire business we have a number of net zero assets already available to our customers, including
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