With business sustainability and environmental concerns at the forefront of our minds, in 2019 BDL made a commitment to convert to electric vehicles.
For fleet use, you need reliable vehicles with good electric capability & high quality finishes to withstand heavy daily use. Model availability in NZ wasn’t at all great back then. The trials of the past few years haven’t helped either, with limited model availability and long lead times. Despite this, 92% of our fleet are now fully electric, plug-in hybrid or hybrid vehicles.
Our electric journey started with our Volkswagen e-golf and an Audi A3 e-tron Plug-in Hybrid. We’ve since added an Audi e-tron 55, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV’s, Skoda Superb IV, Skoda Octavia IVs, Toyota Rav’s and we have just taken delivery of our new fully electric Polestar 2’s.
Our team love driving electric and as a company we are really proud of the steps we have made to reduce our environmental impact.
Our very first EV purchase, the VW e-Golf with its excellent build quality and styling is still a favourite of ours. It doesn’t take long to fall in love with the clean, quiet ride of the e-Golf. Its excellent re-generation capabilities make it the perfect round town car.
Our Skoda Octavia’s arrived earlier this year. These plug in hybrids – kitted out in our 3D Print Services branding, look super smart, are a brilliant drive and with daily charging most of around town driving is done in EV mode.
Our team have been driving this fully electric Audi between Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga for the past two years. They’ve clocked up 40,000 kms with no driving emissions.
The Polestar 2 is next level electric driving, oozing Swedish style and engineering. Fresh off the boat in only the second NZ shipment, we have one of these fabulous cars driving the streets of Auckland and another two in Christchurch. These ones are sporting our clean, fresh 3D Print Service branding. So thats 3 more clean cars on NZ Roads.
Surely one of the most popular cars on the road, these plug-in Outlanders suit our techs perfectly. Loads of storage for their parts and tools!
We now have 5 charging points installed at our head office, courtesy of Evnex who design and manufacture their units right here in Christchurch. With CP Link software, we can manage and track exactly what it costs to charge the vehicles. Drivers can top up whenever they are in the office.
Purchased from our friends at Evnex – we are proud to support local business.
“When I first heard BDL were looking to replace our petrol work vehicles with Electric ones, I couldn’t wait to be onboard with this green initiative. In a role that involves a bit of travel I would often cringe at the amount of petrol being burnt into the atmosphere…and that was just the vehicle I was driving! I have to admit, I did have the dreaded “range anxiety” often talked about with EV’s, however I am realising this was unfounded. With a range of 240 kms per charge and easy access to rapid chargers via work, or charge stations, I can only grin as I drive past petrol stations only wishing more vehicles on our roads were zero emission too.
My car is a fully electric VW e-golf. It has proven to be a great car to drive, smooth and so quiet! Yet has all the bells and whistles you would expect from a petrol vehicle.
As an employee spending a lot of time driving to and from client sites, I wouldn’t want to look back. I am proud to be part of this leading initiative and look forward to a greener future for all of us.”
John Clement – Lead Engineer, Systems & Connectivity