As the first large-scale adopter of electric trucks in Australia, Team Global Express’ experience offers plenty of learnings on the challenges – and opportunities – facing operators in the transition to zero-emissions transport
It’s somewhat curious that the executive in charge of the largest-ever trial of an electric truck fleet in Australia is a self-confessed “petrol head”.
As Team Global Express’s Director ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance), Heather Bone is the driving force behind the company’s ambitious plan to transform its express parcel depot at Bungarribee in Western Sydney into a showcase of emissions-free transport.
In a homage to her passion for classic American V8 cars, the plan from the start was dubbed ‘Project Cobra’.
Bone, along with her “other half” – Volvo Trucks VP Gary Bone – owns a wide collection of classic American muscle cars, such as an AC Cobra (which they built from a kit over three years), a 1966 Mustang GT, a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air and a 496-cubic-inch big block Corvette.
And, of course, there’s a few Harleys!
“When I first went to [Team Global Express CEO] Christine [Holgate] to say I wanted to put in an ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency) application, the Cobra was parked downstairs underneath my home office, and I needed to come up with a project name, so I thought it was ironic to name it after a 7.2-litre, super-charged V8 American muscle car,” she recalls.
I needed to come up with a project name, and I thought it was ironic to name it after a 7.2-litre, super-charged V8 American muscle car.
Heading up the landmark project is a natural progression for someone who cut her teeth in ESG long before “sustainability” became a buzz word.
Armed with a Bachelor of Laws (Corporate Governance, Sustainability, Environmental Law, Contracts) from the University of New England, Bone started out in investment banking before spending two years as National Marketing and Communications Manager at Volvo Group Australia.
A “fascination with fuel”, trucks and “big yellow machinery” led to her next role as CEO of the Biofuels Association of Australia and a career that has since focused on environmental sustainability at organisations such as Downer, Unity Water and Veolia.
Bone joined Team Global Express in September 2021 just as private equity firm Allegro Funds completed its acquisition of the Global Express division of Toll Group from Japan Post.
In line with CEO Christine Holgate’s stated focus on ensuring the business had a “sustainable future”, the initial fleet decarbonisation project was among the first major investments signed off by the board. Their decision to commit $24.2 million to the project, alongside a matching commitment from ARENA, reflects private equity’s focus on ESG, Bone says.
“With private equity, [ESG] is a really important part of reporting and risk management. ESG is all about how you’re doing what you’re doing rather than what you’re doing,” she adds.
At a cost of more than $44.3 million, “Project Cobra” will see nearly one-third of the Bungarribee depot’s fleet transition to electric trucks and is the first step for the business in “operationalising” its decarbonisation intentions.
The trucks – 36 Volvo FLs and 24 Fuso eCanters – will operate under a back-to-base model travelling from the distribution centre to customers in residential and urban areas and returning to the depot for charging.
Bone says the company initially considered depots in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney for the trial. Bungarribee was the logical choice because of its predominant focus on express parcels – a short-haul freight task suited to electric vehicles – and its existing installed solar capacity.
Work on the site commenced shortly after Christmas and will see the depot redesigned to accommodate 60 EVs and, critically, the charging infrastructure required to support them. Bungarribee will house a total of 63 chargers, including 47 slow chargers and 16 fast chargers.
The drivers can park up, go into the cafeteria, have their lunch, go and grab a coffee, and 20 minutes later they’re going to have topped up.
Bone admits the task of designing the site has been “incredibly complex” and the most challenging part of the project. “We’re actually changing a whole site and the site behaviour, so it’s really challenging to do that,” she says.
“We’ve got 180 or so trucks on the site, so we’re taking over a third of the site. We can’t really think of this as if we’re just buying 60 EV trucks.
“There are 60 trucks but there’s also 63 chargers, we’ve got 47 slow chargers, AC chargers, we’ve got 16 fast chargers, we’ve got three spare, and we’ve got a one-megawatt battery coming to the site.”
Based on the configuration of the site, which has six wings each with a capacity of around 64 trucks across two rows, the decision was made to focus on converting one entire wing to EVs.
“We stood back and said okay, if we’re going to make these changes, we’re going to have to make the changes to a whole wing,” Bone says.
“We can’t just put in one truck or two trucks, it doesn’t make sense because we’re going to have to change all of our conveyor systems … the zones those trucks have to drive to has to change, the driver behaviour has to change.”
The location of the charging infrastructure is also critical. Initially, the plan was to position the chargers where the trucks park up at night, however, there was a fear that drivers would just reverse straight into them and take out chargers left, right and centre.
“So, we decided to park them up in two areas, one towards the back of the site in what is currently considered to be a green zone, so there’s going to be 40 parked up in a grid formation a bit like the start of a Formula One grid, with seven over another side where the drivers’ sleeping facilities are,” Bone says.
“But importantly, we’ve got 16 fast chargers down the front of the site which is where the trucks come in and go over the weigh bridge.
“If they come back to the site and they need that quick top up, they can do that during the day and it’s right next to the front driver facility. The drivers can park up, go into the cafeteria, have their lunch, and 20 minutes later they’re going to have topped up.”
We’re actually changing a whole site and the site behaviour, so it’s really challenging to do that.
Installing the energy infrastructure to support 63 chargers has also presented challenges. Although the site had around 400 kilowatts of installed solar capacity, that covers just 25 per cent of its needs.
Adding to the complexity, the nature of the express parcel business means trucks are out on the road during off-peak periods, returning to the depot at night requiring recharging during peak energy demand periods.
“Other operations might be able to charge during the day, other users might be able to constantly rotate fleets so that they’re charging 24-7,” Bone says.
“For us, in that application, they’re out from first thing in the morning to 5 o’clock or 6 o’clock at night when the solar’s doing its job and it’s feeding back into the grid and we’re losing the benefit of it.”
The solution? Installation of a one-megawatt battery which will enable the company to store energy and sell it back into the grid.
“Between four o’clock and eight o’clock at night when the peak loads spike from 12 or 15 cents per kilowatt hour up to 500 cents per kilowatt hour, we can start arbitraging the market and managing that peak load.
“So that battery is going to play a really integral part as a storage system,” Bone says.Besides energy infrastructure, “Project Cobra” has also involved a massive change management program to get the team onboard, from the board of directors down to the drivers and everyone in between.
Prior to signing the contract with ARENA, the company had two weeks of negotiations with representatives from the Transport Workers Union and its 200 members on-site.
Bone also ran town hall sessions to explain the plan and address any concerns.
“And there were incredibly legitimate concerns [about] range anxiety [and] all of those things we talk about,” she says.
I really want to get renewable diesel into our fleet and it’s a drop-in alternative so it’s a no-brainer.
“But I have to give it to the drivers that in going through that process they’ve come along on the journey. They’re really supportive, they’re really excited that they’re going to [part of] this world first.”
While the focus for the next 12-18 months is on executing the trial, Bone says the company will also take the learnings and apply them to other projects. “From here, [we’ll be] taking those learnings and asking what do we do next because we can’t stop here, we can’t just sit back. We’re just at the tipping point,” she says.
“We now need to start looking at how we commercialise this, where’s the next opportunity for us, because we want to stay ahead of the ball game.
“And I think that will be a combination of where is the next logical depot to roll this out, that we can prove doesn’t need ARENA support.
“And every depot is going to be different. I look at our other depots and the layout is remarkably similar at a lot of our depots … physical layout and the electrical layout … but the trucks or the application of them on those sites is different.
“Some of them are predominantly palletised express, so they’re taking prime movers, [and] we don’t really have a prime mover solution yet for an EV – although I am hoping to start to have them very soon.”
Where there’s not an EV solution, Bone sees renewable diesel as a “no brainer”.
“I really want to get renewable diesel into our fleet and it’s a drop-in alternative so it’s a no-brainer, except for cost of course!” she says.
“I’ve already got a couple of projects on the go around hydrogen and looking at fuel cells.”
Bone’s advice for operators about to embark on a similar journey? First and foremost, she suggests approaching it as an energy management project.
Don’t under-estimate those ‘what if’ moments and map them out, start to play with them, because EVs will absolutely have a place and an application, [but] it might not be your application.
“Be agnostic to what that energy is or where it’s coming from, because I think that at a point in time electric vehicles will get bigger, batteries will go further, hydrogen will become available.
“And don’t under-estimate those ‘what if’ moments and map them out, start to play with them, because EVs will absolutely have a place and an application, [but] it might not be your application,” she says.
And, finally, don’t under-estimate the complexity, Bone advises.
“When you look at the financial model, it’s not just a normal financial model, it has all of those levers I was talking about. What happens if the energy costs skyrocket, what happens if the battery’s not working one day?” she says.
“Once your head starts thinking outside that box and without those constraints it’ll open up your mind to all the different options available to you.”