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Tag: green

All-in-one electric fleet management platform

Posted on by David Priestman

 Hitachi ZeroCarbon today unveils a holistic suite of EV fleet solutions designed to simplify every step of fleet electrification, from planning and strategy support, facilitating EV financing, through to a technology platform delivering charging management and battery optimisation – driving decarbonisation across the fleet ecosystem.

With various legal directives across Europe mandating that all new vehicles must be zero-emission by 2035, fleet managers have only a decade to decarbonise. Recognising that many fleets are at different stages of their electrification journey, from building the business case, to looking for affordable financing, to trialling EVs, Hitachi now provides a one-stop-shop service that supports all aspects of the EV fleet ecosystem. The comprehensive solution suite empowers fleet operators to accelerate the runway to electrified transport.

New solutions that are now available include:

• ZeroCarbon Fleet: The combination of Hitachi’s charging and battery management capabilities, Fleet ensures vehicles are safely charged to meet daily operations, manages batteries to protect their long-term performance, and enables organisations to unlock new energy revenue streams from EV fleets.

• ZeroCarbon Charge: Charge is a 24/7 managed service and technology platform, providing real-time alerts, live vehicle monitoring, load balancing and advanced tariff optimisation for reliable charging operations and lower electricity costs.

• ZeroCarbon BatteryManager: The battery is the most valuable component of an electric vehicle. BatteryManager provides a managed service and advanced asset analytics technology platform to help protect performance, extend battery life and maximise its residual value.

• ZeroCarbon Strategy: Hitachi’s energy expertise supports fleet managers through every step of the electrification process, through designing bespoke decarbonisation strategies, conducting site assessments, calculating total cost of ownership, facilitating access to financing through its partners and identifying new energy and asset utilisation revenue opportunities.

These solutions were born out of Hitachi ZeroCarbon’s involvement in Optimise Prime, the world’s largest commercial trial of over 8000 EVs. Hitachi worked closely with major UK fleets, leading technology providers and local distribution network operators to develop and test impactful EV fleet solutions.

Alongside its ability to support fleets through a variety of funding solutions, from providing access to low-cost finance, co-invested equity and debt-based finance, Hitachi ZeroCarbon now has a market-leading end-to-end proposition for fleets. Solutions can all be tailored to the specific needs of public transport operators, utilities and facilities fleets, hauliers and last mile delivery businesses.

Commenting on the launch, Mike Nugent, Chief Revenue Officer, Hitachi ZeroCarbon said: “We understand that every business is unique, and has its own set of decarbonisation challenges, so we’re proud to have curated a service that threads the entire process together in one seamless offering. Our customers are telling us they don’t know where to start, and need support through every step of the journey. That’s why we combine bespoke strategies with a people-first approach to transformation, showing how close management of charge infrastructure and battery assets can deliver real business value. We are experts at taking the complexity out of electrification, and removing capital constraints, so operators can enjoy greater benefits, sooner.”

Stig Tvergrov at Posten Bring, one of Hitachi ZeroCarbon’s key customers, added: “We operate in a challenging environment where the conditions can change dramatically based on season. We needed a resilient and proven electrification partner that had the solutions to anticipate challenges and address them before they materialised.

“Hitachi’s ZeroCarbon’s end-to-end service ticked a lot of boxes, and through our deployment of ZeroCarbon Charge, we achieved complete visibility into the health and performance of our key battery assets, so we can optimise our vehicles based on route, journey, or condition. The service plugged seamlessly into our existing site hardware and software too, which meant no disruption during installation. It led to us having complete visibility over both vehicles and chargers, allowing us to rely on new technology and help us towards achieving our climate goals early.”

Hitachi ZeroCarbon already manages over a thousand electric vehicle assets across Europe, North America and Asia, supporting the global shift to electrified transport. Across its portfolio, Hitachi provides an around-the-clock managed service, with swift incident resolution and expert support to prevent operational risk or disruption. Its services are technology agnostic, so can integrate with any existing fleet hardware or software systems, while its expertise in data science provides market-leading charging and battery optimisation to maximise the value from electric vehicle fleets. 

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Eco-Driving in Europe’s Trucking Sector

[Podcast] Electric Freightway: Decarbonising the UK’s HGVs

Posted on by David Priestman

In this episode of Logistics Business Conversations, host Peter McLeod speaks with Colm Gallagher, Chief Data Scientist at Hitachi ZeroCarbon, about the ambitious Electric Freightway initiative. With heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) responsible for 20% of UK transport emissions, Hitachi ZeroCarbon, in collaboration with Gridserve and other key industry players, is spearheading a data-driven transition towards electric HGVs.

Colm explains how this initiative tackles the “chicken-and-egg” dilemma between charging infrastructure and vehicle adoption, ensuring a synchronized rollout of electric HGVs and public/private charging networks. The discussion explores the role of real-world telemetry data in optimizing fleet operations, reducing costs, and informing industry-wide decarbonization strategies.

Key topics include

The economic viability of electric HGVs, the challenges of scaling up infrastructure, and the behavioural shift required within the logistics sector. Colm also shares insights into Hitachi’s role in analysing fleet performance, supporting operators in making data-driven decisions, and driving policy development for the UK’s 2040 diesel ban.

Tune in to discover how Electric Freightway is shaping the future of sustainable logistics, and what it means for fleet operators, policymakers, and the wider supply chain. Don’t forget to subscribe for more insights from industry leaders tackling today’s most pressing logistics challenges!

Click here to listen to this episode and more…

Intralogistics Provider STILL announced Reforestation Project

Posted on by Keith McKinley

Hamburg-based intralogistics provider STILL has announced it supports the reforestation project PLANT-MY-TREE. This month, the first of a total of 1,000 trees were planted in the reforestation area in Hohenaspe near Itzehoe in Germany. There, on the “STILL woodland”, they will grow in peace for at least 100 years and compensate for harmful emissions.

Environmental protection is currently one of the most important issues in the logistics industry and the subject of lively discussion in the industry. The Hamburg-based STILL GmbH turns words into deeds and actively participates in the PLANT-MY-TREE project, which contributes to CO2 compensation with nationwide reforestation campaigns.

“We wanted to do our part regarding the extremely important topic of sustainability and were looking for appropriate opportunities,” reports Michael Quest, Head of the STILL Branch Hanover/Bielefeld, on how the participation in the project came about. Sven Budelmann, his Sales Manager, brought up the reforestation activities of the PLANT-MY-TREE initiative. “We were immediately inspired by this idea, and the decision to sponsor 1,000 trees quickly matured,” says Michael Quest, adding: “In my opinion, the preservation of an intact environment is the basis of the existence of all of us. Accordingly, we feel an obligation to use natural resources responsibly. This is a principle that STILL already observes when developing new products by considering their impact on the environment at an early stage”.

Spread the word

However, there is more to it: the customers of the main branch in Hanover/Bielefeld are to have a share in the environmental protection campaign. “Customers who ordered new electric forklift trucks from us and shut down their IC engine-powered forklifts in return received personalised tree certificates as a small thank-you. These certificates can be displayed prominently at their company premises and thus underline their environmentally conscious attitude and actions,” explains Sven Budelmann. The STILL Branch Manager and his Sales Manager plan to give away further tree certificates during the upcoming Christmas season to those customers who remained loyal to them in recent months during the Covid-19 crisis.

His attitude towards ecology also prevented Michael Quest from personally participating in today’s tree planting campaign in Hohenaspe. Quest: “Of course, we would all have loved to have been there and taken a look at the site where our 1,000 trees will now stand watch for at least 100 years. But for this we would have had to travel several hours to get there. This, however, is anything but ecological and contradicts our attitude towards climate protection”. For this reason, Mikinari Oki, Head of the Hamburg/Bremen Branch, and Andre Jacques, Regional Service Manager, were on site as official representatives of STILL GmbH during the tree planting campaign in Schleswig-Holstein.

STILL celebrated it’s 100th birthday this year.

Switch to Electric Vehicles made Simpler with new Tool

Posted on by Keith McKinley

Fleet operators who want to switch to electric vehicles can use a new web-based automated AI tool- the Teletrac EV Readiness tool. It has been developed by telematics solutions, company Teletrac.

In the UK the government mandates the production of new petrol and diesel engines will cease by 2035. OEMs and operators need to therefore find effective ways to transition fleets into the world of electric.

Teletrac’s EV Readiness Tool integrates with their fleet management and tracking platforms. It analyses all telematics data to provide operators with detailed recommendations of where electric vehicles could be adopted into their operation. The tool can analyse the feasibility of switching. It can also calculate the total cost of ownership of an EV switch versus the existing fleet (purchase price, residual value, taxes, insurance, maintenance, electricity costs). It also calculates the total CO2 and fuel savings the business would make.

The EV Readiness Tool will even recommend the ideal EV vehicles to switch to. It can advise on how many and what type of chargers are required to run the recommended vehicles. It calculates the cost of the chargers, as well as where they should be located to ensure no loss of battery based on the trips being undertaken.

The tool uses AI and historical telematics data to provide evaluations for fleet operators. The platform analyses everything, from the average number of trips overall and per vehicle, the distance, regularity, usage times, usage patterns, and time spent moving versus idle.

Nicholas Wilson, Environmental Project Co-Ordinator at Stockport Homes trialled the tool. He commented: “As the ALMO managing the housing stock for Stockport Council, we have targets to have at least 60% of our fleet fully electric by 2025. We need to reduce CO2 emissions and become carbon neutral by 2038, in line with Greater Manchester. So, the opportunity to put the EV Readiness Tool to the test was such a valuable exercise, and the results are strong. It shows we’re able to electrify a large proportion of our fleet. This will help prevent CO2 emissions, improve fuel consumption, and make significant cost of ownership savings over five years. It also advised us on how many chargers to install and where. What’s more, the ease of the evaluation was really impressive – it took no time at all.”

Barney Goffer, UK Product Manager at Teletrac Navman, added: “We all know a major EV transition is coming soon but it’s still an unknown space for a lot of operators. However, in the long-term it’s best practice to start considering which vehicles are already viable for that switch. Where financially feasible we can begin the changeover.

“The EV Readiness Tool’s AI functionality takes the headache away for operators. It uses the power of AI to help our customers go from data to decisions. It very easily sees where they can electrify, making it a quicker, easier, and more informed discussion with internal stakeholders and financial decision makers within the business as to the best road to take towards their future electric fleet.”

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