Trucks
Trucks
“I have young children and I want them to grow up in a world where they inhale clean air,” says Marie-José Baartmans, managing director at transport company BREYTNER.
To say Marie-José is committed to cleaner transportation is an understatement. For the past decade, her company has been operating as a 100% zero emissions transportation business after pivoting from diesel trucks to electric. In that time, its fleet of electric trucks have covered more than one million kilometres.
It’s a commitment and investment in the future that’s already paying dividends, both for her company and its customers. “We are 10 steps ahead of the rest of the industry,” she says. “And that gives us a big advantage.”
With a decade’s experience already in electric trucks, BREYTNER has gained invaluable knowledge that stands it in good stead with its customers. “You can share that knowledge with your customer and that gives you more added value towards them,” she adds.
The company has also learned lots along the way. Take its charging strategy, as an example. “We want to find the cheapest energy prices in combination with not having to make extra stops during the day because then you lose unnecessary time,” adds Marie-José. “So we try to charge either while unloading or offloading or during the night.”
My advice to other companies would be to start as soon as possible.
With more and more companies focusing on sustainability, BREYTNER’s all-electric solution is an attractive proposition for companies looking to minimise their impact on the environment. “There's demand coming from those types of customers,” she believes.
For Marie-José, there were two big reasons for going electric. “First, we saw it as a business opportunity. The second reason was the knowledge of how diesel trucks work, what they do in the inner city and what comes from the exhaust. If you can work with cleaner technology, you want to make that step.”
She describes the transition to all-electric as “exciting. Innovative. Like being pioneers”. The key, in her opinion, to getting started is to find the “low hanging fruit”. That may be using electric trucks on inner city distribution routes, for example. “My advice to other companies would be to start as soon as possible,” she says. “Take a step-by-step approach. Start with one or two trucks and then think of a long-term implementation programme.”
