Electrify Your Business

What distinguishes GoinGreen from larger companies and manufacturers is that they are able to keep up with the rapidly changing technology because they are not tied to large production facilities, which is advantageous for customers

What we’ve done is designed a modular drive train so that if battery technology changes we can switch the battery technology out using the new technology but leave the components as they were and our software takes care of that for us. So if there’s suddenly a huge increase in energy density our software will compensate for that allowing all the charging regimes to be adjusted. That means that we can move very quickly as the technology changes

In fact, the company invests heavily in research and development.

“We have a crazy professor that works for us (and he doesn’t even mind me calling him that!) who spends all his time looking at new technology. Most of the time he’ll say: ‘Cat’s chance in hell, you’re trying to recreate perpetual motion, it’s never going to work’, but we spend a lot of time doing that because we know that for every 50 things he looks at, one of them will be a game changer. And when that happens, we want to be a part of it. For example, at the moment there’s a guy who claims he has an electric motor that can recharge the battery whilst it’s also driving the motor, and we have that under test right now. If it’s true, then it requires the rewriting of one of the laws of physics because electric motors are by default 93-94% efficient so there isn’t a huge chunk of extra inefficiency that he can tap into, so he’s got to be doing something with this motor that’s quite incredible.”

Advances in technology are also being applied to the infrastructure to support electric vehicles. 50kw charging posts are currently being installed in motorway service stations that will recharge 80% of your battery in 30 minutes. In the future, Ian believes this will be brought down to 15 minutes for 100%. There are also rapid developments being made in electric induction plate charging (that’s wireless to the uninitiated!), again making the process smoother. These changes will certainly help to make electric vehicles more popular with the general public, but Ian reiterates that particularly for the utility and delivery markets, all the infrastructure they need (i.e. a base with a socket) is already in place.

By current estimations an electric vehicle engine should last around 10 years, which is longer than the average car, (electric engines have just one moving part compared to over 400 moving parts in a normal engine) and as Ian has pointed out they require very little servicing in that time. However, GoinGreen has been very careful to ensure part of the business focus is to provide a maintenance service for electric vehicles of all varieties:

One of the things we recognised early in the game is that people were selling EVs but they had forgotten that after they’d sold it somebody needed to take care of it! So we were careful to make sure we could look after things and we do a very good job of that

This is where the partnership with Footloose 4×4 comes into play. All of the mechanics are being given special training to service the portfolio of electric vehicles. At first glance, this partnership seems incredibly odd – what on earth do big 4×4 Land Rovers and Toyotas have in common with the greenest vehicles on the market? Ian sheds some light on the unlikely union: “We have a number of criteria that are very important to us as we roll the franchise out. The first is an amazing level of customer service and that is absolutely the case here. These guys do an incredible job. Nothing’s too much trouble – delivering cars at midnight, going out to customers at the weekend, every customer we talked to here said ‘I’m in love with these guys!’

The next thing that’s very important is a level of knowledge about electric systems. You wouldn’t imagine that could be the case here, but it is because one of the things these guys do is build overland expedition products with 240V and 12V systems that enable people to use satellite navigation, mobile phones, laptop computers, do their cooking and so on. It’s actually an incredibly complex system inside the vehicles

Another key link is Dave Day, general manager of the overland expedition company. Having spent four years in Peterborough Council as the chair of the Environmental Scrutiny Committee, he is pretty clued up on green issues – a rather unique combination of petrol head and environmentalist! It was actually Dave who got in touch with GoinGreen and convinced them that Peterborough was the perfect destination, and he’s very excited by the new venture.

It’s all seemed to culminate together quite nicely for me! I’ve had to drag a few of the guys along going ‘this is the future, but now that they’ve actually had a go in the vehicles, they think they’re brilliant!

The new franchise will officially launch early next year, with the retail unit located just around the corner from Footloose 4×4.

Contact details for Footloose 4×4:

Unit 1
Woodston Business Centre
Shrewsbury Avenue
Woodston
Peterborough
PE2 7EF.

(0) 1733 362 999

 www.footloose4x4.com

Contact details for GoinGreen

020 8574 3232

www.goingreen.co.uk