CASE STUDIES

Tai Tarian are one of the largest social landlords in Wales and have responsibility for over 9,000 properties across the Neath Port Talbot County Borough.

For the housing association, becoming more carbon friendly and decarbonising their current fleet is a top priority, and fortunately a vision that is shared across the whole organisation. However, they have faced some key challenges, including a lack of charging infrastructure and lack of access to a full range of electric commercial vehicles in their area. Above all, justification of the expense of switching their diesel fleet to electric has been a significant hurdle.

With a view to phasing out their internal combustion engines, Tai Tarian embarked on a business case for introducing the first commercial electric vehicles to their fleet. They subsequently approached TPPL around managing the additional cost per vehicle and were presented with an innovative cost calculator. This was just the solution they needed to provide an independent report that would facilitate their business case for making the transition to electric.

The cost calculator combines the purchase or lease price of the vehicle, the cost of fuel or electric charging, maintenance costs, and estimates of the damage costs caused by carbon and pollutant emissions to produce a figure which more accurately reflects the respective costs of electric and conventional fuelled vehicles.

According to Tai Tarian, ‘TPPL were excellent at explaining the thinking behind the cost calculator, and helped us to understand the terminology associated with zero carbon transport’

The cost calculator enabled Tai Tarian to commit to introducing their first electric commercial vehicles, and they placed orders for two Vauxhall e-Vivaros via TPPL’s Framework Agreement to support their cleaning team. In addition, they are committed to ordering a further five similar electric commercial vehicles early next year; ensuring their painting team can continue to operate without range or payload anxiety.

By using the cost calculator, Tai Tarian were able to consider the whole life costs of electric vehicles and, in alignment with the housing association’s ethos, to quantify the positive impact on health and wellbeing that reducing emissions would have for their local communities.

Key successes:

• Delivering complete transparency on life costs of electric vehicles
• Improving understanding around zero carbon terminology to enable better buying decisions
• Accelerating the transition from diesel to electric