This report summarises the findings from the, “Electric Vehicle Ready Local Government Fleets” project undertaken by ClimateWorks Australia. The key objective of this project was to increase electric vehicle uptake in Victorian local government fleets. This reports highlights learnings from the project to inform future projects in this area. The report explains the approach we took and provides recommendations for future work that would further enable local governments to transition their fleets to electric vehicles.

Recommendations:

1. A national capacity building program - Councils need a capacity building program that provides the information and tools needed to build fleet transition plans. Tools for calculating the total cost of ownership of vehicles will be important in building a Council’s business case for switching to an electric vehicle fleet.
2. Events to create momentum at the executive level - executive support will play a key role in enabling Councils to develop transition plans to electric vehicles for their entire fleet. Many Councils are willing to purchase or lease one or two electric vehicles, but few are currently developing full fleet transition plans. Future events targeted at Councillors and Mayors could generate the required momentum for Councils to move their entire fleet to electric, leading the way for a broader transition.
3. Actions to reduce the capital cost barrier - capital cost barriers faced by Councils when purchasing electric vehicles could be lessened through a national project to showcase growing Australian demand for electric vehicles. Working with fleet buyers across government and corporate sectors could benefit the Australian market by encouraging electric vehicle manufacturers to bring more models and vehicles to Australia.