FLEET, BUSINESS ANOTHER WAY

CUPRA helps fleets every step of the way

Area fleet manager Mark Penny takes renewable energy course to ensure he has all the answers for EV adoption

With an area that stretches from Southampton to Land’s End and covers everywhere west of the M5 and M6 as far north as Crewe, Mark Penny is a prime candidate to assess the viability of electric company cars for high mileage drivers.

One of CUPRA’s four area fleet managers, Penny drove the brand’s battery-electric Born for a fortnight, visiting clients throughout the vast region he covers and showing how electric vehicles (EVs) can work for almost everyone. He would have liked to keep the car for longer, but such is the runaway success of the Born that new stock and orders are prioritised for clients.

The driving experience added practical insight to the theory that Penny learned on an in-depth, intensive EV training course run by the strategic consultancy Zero Carbon Futures. The course covered every aspect of electric vehicles, including policy and regulation, public attitudes to EVs, recharging infrastructure, recharging business cases, electricity networks and power generation, how EVs work, battery technology, recycling and second life.

“Once people start driving electric, they quickly learn that the charging infrastructure is pretty good and, after a couple of months, they realise it’s very good.”

Each of CUPRA’s area fleet managers has completed the course and passed its final examination, leading to the Galileo Master Certificate, the internationally recognised certificate in the renewable energy industry.

This impressive foundation of EV understanding is proving valuable in helping fleet customers master the intricacies of the transition to battery-electric powertrains, from major strategic decisions to filling in knowledge gaps in areas that drivers might ask about, says Penny.

“We can explain everything that customers need to be looking at to negate range and charging anxiety,” he says.

The best assistance, however, is simply to get fleet decision-makers and company car drivers behind the wheel of CUPRA’s ultra-low emission cars, both EV and plug-in hybrid (PHEV), says Penny.

“When people have a chance to drive our cars, they invariably love them and want to place an order,” he says. “Once people start driving electric, they quickly learn that the charging infrastructure is pretty good and, after a couple of months, they realise it’s very good.”

CUPRA’s EV&me app helps drivers assess whether a battery-electric or PHEV would work best for their job needs and lifestyle, while the CUPRA Connect and My CUPRA apps include functions that let drivers schedule the charging of their cars, set the interior temperature before they get in, and check the status of the batteries.

Allied to these practical, operational steps are the wholelife cost calculations prepared by Penny to help fleet decision-makers position alternatively-fuelled cars on their choice lists, highlighting their “crushingly low tax and National Insurance” benefits.

“We also know which leasing company has the best residual value forecasts for our cars, so, in conjunction with the support we can give, we can place six or seven variants of the Born into three or four bands on choice lists,” he says.

“We have 15 cars with CO2 emissions of less than 75g/km, including seven zero-emission variants, so we have a really wide spread of cars that all levels of drivers can choose, from job-need cars to directors.”

This contact with the customer is the best thing about his role, says Penny, who has seen communication increase significantly as fleets and their drivers keep abreast of the status of orders.

“I truly believe that CUPRA, as a challenger brand, will start to shine brighter and brighter as we add new models to our range that will suit all of our customers who want to adopt ultra-low emission vehicles because we have a unique blend of sportiness, price and equipment in our cars,” he says.

Providing bespoke EV solutions

One size certainly doesn’t fit all when it comes to electric vehicle adoption, as area fleet manager Jeremy Young explains…

Having honest and open conversations about electric vehicles (EVs) is a core part of the consultative approach taken by CUPRA’s four area fleet managers.

Working with businesses that operate 150 or more vehicles, the team of regionally-based EV experts are primed to dispel the myths about operating an electric fleet and to also give advice based on a company’s individual requirements.

Jeremy Young looks after CUPRA fleet customers in the central region of the UK which covers everything between Brighton and Leicester within the M40 and M1 corridor. He says: “As more people and companies start to adopt electric vehicles, it’s important to understand the wider landscape.

“Most people can talk about charging and range, but we want to add value to those conversations.

“Some of the corporates we talk to are at very different points of adoption with EV, they have different criteria within their own policies and many different stakeholders with different objectives as well. You need that wider knowledge base to really have those in-depth conversations and to find the right solution.”

Driver buy-in is crucial and, while it’s well-known that EVs provide exciting performance, greater refinement and significant cost savings, for those that are new to the technology range concerns can still be a barrier to uptake.

Young says this can be worsened if drivers over-estimate the mileage they cover each day, causing them to rule out otherwise suitable vehicles.

He explains: “I worked with one business where every driver said they did at least 300 miles per day, but when they looked at telematics data very few covered more than 200.

“From our smallest fleet customers right up to our largest, there is a lot of interest in electrification right now and we’re ready to help them on their journey.”

“The outcome was that an EV with a 250-mile range would be perfectly acceptable, which opened up the policy to more drivers and led to a greater choice of cars.”

Some drivers do still struggle with the concept of not having the backup of an engine, which is where CUPRA’s E-HYBRID plug-in hybrid technology comes in. It allows drivers to embrace electrification, get used to charging and benefit from enhanced performance and reduced costs, while delivering long-range capability.

Another part of Young’s role is to ensure that CUPRA vehicles sit within the appropriate bandings on company choice lists.

He says: “A core part of our job is to check the right cars are in the right grades and work closely with customers and leasing companies to achieve this.

With a background in automotive retailing, Young is no stranger to the CUPRA dealer network – which ultimately supplies the vehicles to end users.

“My relationship with the retailers, and particularly the corporate hubs, is really important because they are, effectively, our supply chain to the end-user. A good relationship with them and understanding their challenges and how they work, and obviously them understanding us and spending time with us, is really important.”

Young concludes: “From our smallest fleet customers right up to our largest, there is a lot of interest in electrification right now and we’re ready to help them on their journey. It’s an exciting time for CUPRA as we have a range of cars now, and more coming soon, that meet both the sustainability goals of fleets and are desirable for drivers.”