Mercury meets fleet EV target

Mercury meets fleet EV target

Mercury has announced that it has transitioned all possible vehicles in its fleet to electric, one year ahead of target. Mercury’s corporate fleet now has over 70% fully electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles which represents 80 out of 114 vehicles.
The target was set at the company’s Annual Shareholders’ Meeting (ASM) in 2014, and Chief Executive, Fraser Whineray, announced at today’s ASM that the company has changed every vehicle that can be practically transitioned to electric models currently available.

“We saw that using home-grown electricity to fuel transport was a stunning opportunity for New Zealand and New Zealanders, and it also made total sense for us as a business,” says Fraser.
“We’ve made our company fleet as electric as it can be right now. It’s powered at a fraction of the cost of fossil fuels and is clearly better for the environment.”

In the three years since Mercury announced its target, electric vehicles (EVs) have moved from being a ‘vision of the future’ to entering the mainstream. There is support across all major political parties for transport electrification and the current coalition Government is targeting its vehicle fleet to become emissions-free by 2025/26.

Mercury worked with other New Zealand organisations to encourage widespread uptake of EVs including a landmark commitment by over 30 New Zealand companies to transition at least 30 percent of their company vehicles to electric by 2019. Mercury, with others, also helped bring the Electric Highway to New Zealand with the peer-to-peer EV charger location app, ‘Plugshare’.

“There’s still a long way to go, but we are confident that the transition of New Zealand’s vehicle fleet to electric will be well supported by business and Government. It’s 30 cents per litre, a 3-pin plug will power it up, and there’s plenty of renewable electricity to support the charge,” says Fraser.

ENDS

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