Part of a successful electric vehicle journey for truck and bus fleets is ensuring that drivers, technicians, and managers are comfortable with the overall operations of the vehicles. Episode four of “The EV Fleet Road Map” podcast by International® Truck and IC Bus® takes a deep dive based on learnings from early adopters into how you can successfully and seamlessly onboard EVs into your fleet. In this episode, Joe Jenkins, Zero Emissions Customer Onboarding Manager, walks us through some of the key differences between electric and internal combustion engine vehicles, including regenerative braking, what drivers and technicians should keep an eye on during inspections, and high-voltage safety for maintenance providers.
Part of a successful electric vehicle journey for truck and bus fleets is ensuring that drivers, technicians, and managers are comfortable with the overall operations of the vehicles. Episode four of “The EV Fleet Road Map” podcast by International® Truck and IC Bus® takes a deep dive based on learnings from early adopters into how you can successfully and seamlessly onboard EVs into your fleet. In this episode, Joe Jenkins, Zero Emissions Customer Onboarding Manager, walks us through some of the key differences between electric and internal combustion engine vehicles, including regenerative braking, what drivers and technicians should keep an eye on during inspections, and high-voltage safety for maintenance providers.
Fleet Equipment Host Jason Morgan:
Hi everyone, and welcome to the EV Fleet Roadmap, a Navistar podcast on your fleet's path to zero emissions. I'm your host, Jason Morgan, and joining me today is Joe Jenkins, zero emissions customer onboarding manager for Navistar. Joe, thanks for taking the time. Great to talk with you.
Joe Jenkins, Zero Emissions Customer Onboarding Manager:
Nice to be here.
Jason Morgan:
When these EVs get out on the road, you are the guy making it happen, right? You're going to customers, you're talking with them, you're making sure that they are going to be successful in their EV journey.
Joe Jenkins:
That's right. Yeah. Our mission is to make them comfortable with the vehicle at the end of the day, and so the transition into EV can be a little daunting, or scary, for a lot of customers. So that's what we do.
Jason Morgan:
Yeah, exciting though as well, because I've been in some of these EVs, right? They're exciting vehicles, they're fun to operate, right? But there's a difference. There's a big difference coming from the diesel world. What are some of those things, those differences, that fleets, or customers, need to be aware of when moving from diesel to electric vehicles?
Joe Jenkins:
I'd say the key one is probably going to be the range that the vehicle can operate in. We call it range anxiety in the industry, but what we understand, though, is that most fleets have a place for an EV in their operations, and we have to help them find where that vehicle fits. So, range anxiety can be battled by just planning on how you're going to use it in your fleet in the first place.
Jason Morgan:
Right. Well, and the anxiety part, right? It's all... People build it up. You hear about range anxiety, and you read about it, the headlines, and then you think, "Oh, I don't know how this will work for mine." But as you point out, you work with the customer, make sure the application, the vehicle, is still meeting the application demand in that application.
Joe Jenkins:
Absolutely.
Jason Morgan:
What's important in terms of either operation, or just kind of the workflow, for when the vehicle's on the site. It rolls into the site, you hopefully have charging on the site at that point. You need that before the vehicle shows up, because if you've got the vehicle showing up, that's not going to help you if you don't have charging. What are some of those operational differences that you have to work with people on?
Joe Jenkins:
Basically, around the charging is the strategy on when and where to charge, I think is the biggest leader into success. Planning on where you're going to have your chargers at, depending on your fleet usage. Some customers may have a single point for charging, where the vehicle only comes back to that place every day. And then we have, maybe on the truck side with customers, they may want to charge at their deliveries as well. All of that is part of the strategy to success for an EV, zero emissions vehicle.
Jason Morgan:
I know you're going to a lot of customer events where they're taking delivery of the vehicles, and you're there working with them to make sure that the driver's successful, fleet manager's successful. What kind of training goes into this? It's something that we haven't talked a lot about in this space of what training do you provide people to make sure they're successful?
Joe Jenkins:
The training that we provide centers around the driver first, and making the driver comfortable with something that's a little different to them, and efficiently using the vehicle to get out of it what they should. A lot of that comes around efficient driving by using regenerative braking. Our vehicles have three different levels of this, so we coach them to use the strongest that they're comfortable with. And then also, they have a lot of questions about my pre-trip, what's that look like? What are the things that I'm looking for? They're asking about safety items. What if I'm in an accident, what do I do?
That training is centered around the driver first, and then from there, we also speak with the fleet management folks, and a lot of the same topics. High volt safety, what do I do if the vehicle's compromised, all the way down to how do I manage this vehicle on my fleet? We give them guidance around using on-command connection, or their OEMs telematics, and that's a big helper to running a zero emissions vehicle, because now we get a lot more data on efficiency, and we can compare one vehicle to the next and know where can we do better.
Jason Morgan:
Well, let me back up a little bit. I do want to dig into this, because the pre-trip, I think this is the first time that I've even heard that of, "Oh yeah. There's probably some differences there." I mean, every driver is familiar with secure, not cracked, broke and leaking, kind of, pre-trip inspection. Do you have examples of some of those biggest differences on an EV compared to a diesel?
Joe Jenkins:
Well, the biggest difference is there's a lot less fluids to worry about, but with EVs, the cooling systems are pretty critical to overall performance and the health of the vehicle. So, we have to highlight places where there could be coolant leaks that they're not used to finding them. I mean, from the front of the vehicle all the way to the back, we could have cooling leaks. That's a big point on the pre-trip inspection. There's also the conversation around high-volt safety, and don't touch orange, or how do I turn this thing off safely? So, pre-trip, that's where we get the opportunity to show them where these high-voltage safety areas are and coach them around how do I inspect the vehicle without compromising myself or it?
Jason Morgan:
It's a great point, because every day drivers are cracking open the hoods, they're checking the oil, they're checking the cooling, you're looking for your lines. You see your airlines there. Okay, that's all great. Yeah. Moving toward opening the hood of an electric truck and seeing different cables, even going from even sometimes engine manufacturer to engine manufacturer to engine manufacture in the diesel world is a little, you got to take a moment to really make sure you know what you're looking at. But, in that EV world understanding, which are the electric cables. I like that example of the coolant going all the way through. Right? I got to follow that line all the way through the drive line now, not just stopping here in the engine compartment.
Joe Jenkins:
For drivers, they want to know where can all these leaks be? And that's just one part of a PDI, or a pre-trip, but it's a core for them for what do I look for in my walk around?
Jason Morgan:
Right. Right, exactly, and I mean, there are still the commonalities that they understand the brakes, the wheels, the tires.
Joe Jenkins:
Absolutely. So, for us, the brakes, and the suspension, are a carryover from a diesel product, so it helps simplify pre-trip on that aspect. What we don't have is engine oil leaks, or exhaust leaks, or any kind of after-treatment components that may be aging, those kinds of things that we don't have to do in the EV space.
Jason Morgan:
Right. Yeah. Very cool. One more thing I wanted to follow up to on the efficient driving. Now, efficiency, obviously, is the name of the game in our world, in the commercial world anyway. But, you mentioned the regenerative braking, the different levels, and that you want them to use, you got 1, 2, 3, I assume three being the most, what do you say, aggressive braking, or reactive?
Joe Jenkins:
I would say the most aggressive.
Jason Morgan:
Yeah.
Joe Jenkins:
The driver gets the most feedback in that setting, and it gets the maximum amount of energy back to the system.
Jason Morgan:
So, that's that kind of one-pedal driving, when you take your foot off the accelerator, then you start slowing down at a pretty good clip.
Joe Jenkins:
Correct. It is generally referred to as one-pedal driving in most applications. We tend to not call it that, because it doesn't take the driver to a complete stop in our application.
Jason Morgan:
Okay. Well, and that's an important, going back to the training and understanding the equipment, right? I've seen various levels of that. Some EVs will go down to a full stop. Some EVs won't go down to a full stop, and you're not really sure, sometimes, until you get into the vehicle of how far down this region will go. Some will stop at five miles per hour and still let you crawl up. It takes a little while, in my experience of being behind those wheels too. I always stop like a car length before I expect to.
Joe Jenkins:
We do see that a lot. That's a focal point of training for the drivers when they finally get behind the wheel. What is region? We explain it in a way that, maybe is more familiar to them, and we compare it to engine braking, or what some people would call Jake Brake. It feels like Jake Brake, but it's more intense. Where it's better, is the driver has the ability to feather that intensity, but with throttle position, and that's part of the learning process. Some of them are a little more aggressive on the throttle pedal than others, and they learn to drive it better just to make it smoother. It has an effect of making them a more efficient driver right out of the gate.
Jason Morgan:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in diesel world, you put that accelerator down to the floor to get through your first couple gears, because you need those engine's RPMs up, and then you can work on it. This one, you got instant torque right away and it takes off on you. They're fun, but different for sure. Post-delivery, then. So, you've delivered it. You've done the training. Any other training, or guidance, or how do you help customers continue that success, then?
Joe Jenkins:
Well, what we like to do with them is review efficiency data over time. Typically, we have, what we call, a 45-day review with a customer, and we will pull an efficiency report by, basically, charge sessions and how many miles they're going in between.
Jason Morgan:
Oh, interesting.
Joe Jenkins:
We can do this by temperature even, and we can show the customer the vehicle's efficiency from cold weather to warm weather, or from one driver to the next, and it helps them along the path of maybe retraining their drivers so that everybody's getting the same efficiency out of their bus or their truck.
Jason Morgan:
Right. Right. Because, again, going back to it, efficiency now relates to range, and then you have an expected range, and then you get that inherent range anxiety just because it's new, so you want to make sure you're hitting that expectation. Driver still has a big portion of that. So, once you have the vehicles and the customers, you've got them all trained up, they're ready to roll. What does that successful rollout look like when you're working with a customer? What do you want to see happen?
Joe Jenkins:
I would say a successful customer onboarding would consist of the OEM, and the end-user, taking advantage of the consulting phase. This is where a lot of lessons learned can be employed onto a new customer, and we can help them not make the mistakes that others have made. But ultimately, charging is in place, has been commissioned, tested, primarily with our vehicle would be wonderful. It does happen that way sometimes. Also, the end-user has been trained on how to properly use the vehicle, how to maintain it, any safety items that they may have in question. For us, a customer onboarding is successful when we can hit all those points, and the vehicle can be used the same day that we deliver it.
Jason Morgan:
Right, right. Very cool. That's all well and good, but we know that things happen. Applications are different, customers are different. There are challenges, still, every day. That's kind of the name of the game. Do you have any standout examples of, maybe, lessons you've learned doing these roll-outs and these customer onboardings of cautionary tales, maybe?
Joe Jenkins:
Yes. I would say we've had a couple of pain points along the way. Primarily earlier in our strategy, but we have had learnings from past customer interactions where, perhaps, the consulting phase was not offered, or not taken advantage of, and so the customer made poor decisions on what charging equipment to purchase, or where to put it, or how do I integrate this vehicle into my fleet and make it work. So, typically the lessons learned are around advising the customer before they even receive the vehicle.
Jason Morgan:
On this podcast, we've talked a lot about that too. That front-end conversation and planning, and how the ability to start now isn't just buying the trucks, it's just having the conversation. It's not even a sales conversation, it's just like a planning conversation, right?
Joe Jenkins:
That's right. It's definitely not from a sales point of view. At Navistar, we like to make sure that the vehicle is going to fit their use case before we pursue even selling it to them. What we want is every one of our customers to have success with the zero emissions.
Jason Morgan:
Right. And I mean, it's a new segment, new product, new kind of category there for people to understand and work with customers and fleets like to shop around, work with a lot of different OEMs and suppliers, but to look for that kind of consultative consultation approach is big. How does the dealer play into that? Fleets have the relationship with the dealer. How does that work in the zero emission space now?
Joe Jenkins:
For us, the dealers are our partners. They're typically the first and the last contact for them, and they're also our biggest ally in keeping the vehicles maintained and on the road. For Navistar, it's a huge piece of the puzzle, and going forward, it's getting even bigger. Right now, we have 50 of our servicing dealers that are certified for EV with another 70 in the process of becoming certified.
Jason Morgan:
Oh, wow.
Joe Jenkins:
We have the largest servicing footprint in North America for the EV product.
Jason Morgan:
What goes into that certification, or what does the dealer have to understand to be able to provide that service to their customers?
Joe Jenkins:
The dealer needs, what we call, preferred tool list. Also, they have to have at least two of their technicians certified. They have to have safety equipment and PPE, and they also have to have a approved style of lift for the EV vehicle.
Jason Morgan:
Okay, interesting.
Joe Jenkins:
So, there's a lot of things that the dealer has to do to get on board, and we're seeing a lot of adoption.
Jason Morgan:
And just to clarify, the technician training, the PPE is personal protective equipment, I believe, right?
Joe Jenkins:
Personal protective equipment.
Jason Morgan:
But I guess I didn't realize that it comes down to lift selection too. I can't just put the truck on a typical lift. This is a big equipment changeover than now. Can you explain that a little bit of why that is?
Joe Jenkins:
What we recommend is a wheel-style lift. Typically, they're portable. You can move them around your shop. The other thing that we recommend is a dedicated workspace in your shop where you can keep high-voltage work away from other technicians that aren't trained. But as far as lifting goes, we've learned that the wheel lift works the best for avoiding any kind of damage to the vehicle.
Jason Morgan:
I've heard about the dedicated bay to electric vehicle work. In your expertise, can I only do EV work there, or is that just the bay where if an EV does come in, it rolls in there and can I still service diesel there too?
Joe Jenkins:
That's correct. What we see the dealers doing is they're saying, this is our EV workspace when we have one, and all the PPE, and the required tools, are in that area. When an EV comes in, they can triage and do what they need to do.
Jason Morgan:
Then, when I get the eMV, right, it rolls in. I'm going to get a couple of those. Is the servicing side completely handled by the dealer network? If I run my own PMs, are you training me as the fleet? Where should my expectation be on how much I'm touching the vehicle in a service capacity?
Joe Jenkins:
For basic PMs, the end user can do these coolant changes, power steering fluid. We still have hydraulic power steering. There's an air filter for the air compressor. There are things that the end user can do themselves, but when it comes down to high-voltage equipment repairs, this is still something that we would like for the dealers to handle. High-voltage, trained technicians.
Jason Morgan:
Those early days, just kind of getting comfortable with it. Again, it goes back to that partnership between you and the customer, and the fleet then too, of still a lot to learn here in the space and still a lot to just, kind of, work through. The challenges are going to happen, but I think what I've learned in talking with you throughout the podcast is just having a partner that I can work through it on and that I'm not alone in it, and we do this. How would someone get a hold of you, or get involved with a Navistar team on the EV side?
Joe Jenkins:
I would say your first contact is going to be at your local dealer. Find out if they are EV compliant, or if they're on the path to. Then they're going to be able to guide you towards consulting, around charging, and just how to get the EV into your fleet.
Jason Morgan:
Well, I appreciate you taking the time to consult with me and all things EV. Had a great time. Thanks for being here.
Joe Jenkins:
Thank you.
Jason Morgan:
And thank you for watching the EV Fleet Roadmap, a Navistar podcast about your fleet's path towards zero emissions. I'm Jason Morgan, and we'll see you next time.