Custom Fleet is positioning vehicle sharing, pool fleets and connected mobility services as a more practical way for organisations to reduce fleet costs, improve utilisation and support decarbonisation.
The company is now the majority shareholder in New Zealand mobility provider Carbn, which offers EV car sharing and connected vehicle solutions. Chris Tulloch, President, Custom Fleet, said the investment gives the business capabilities that would have taken longer to build internally.
“We thought they had a really strong value proposition in a market that was screaming out for those more mobility-style solutions,” Tulloch said.
“With our view as an organisation around acquiring capability, this seemed like a really neat opportunity to accelerate our journey towards that future-state mobility ecosystem, accelerated through acquisition instead of trying to spend time, effort, money and resources building.”
At the centre of Carbn’s offer is vehicle sharing. That can include conventional pool vehicles, car-share-style access and shared EV fleets that sit between the two.
For fleet buyers, the appeal is not necessarily replacing every fleet vehicle with an alternative transport mode. Instead, it is having more options to match the transport task with the right vehicle, or potentially avoid allocating a vehicle that spends much of its time parked.
“Clients [are] looking for movement and transportation, and they just want that in the most effective, efficient, safest and now, in more recent times, greenest way possible,” Tulloch said.
“That doesn’t necessarily need to be a fleet vehicle that they own.”
Right-sizing fleets with shared vehicles
New Zealand has been an early market for shared mobility and fleet right-sizing, according to Tulloch. He said cost pressure, sustainability targets and stronger EV uptake have encouraged organisations to look beyond the traditional model of individually allocated or lightly used pool vehicles.
Carbn’s EV-only fleet also creates a potential second and third life for vehicles after their first corporate lease cycle.
“Carbn have actually built a model where they have and give a second and third life to the EV,” Tulloch said.
“As we look to push proliferation of EVs in fleets, we actually now have another mechanism at the end of the first life for Carbn to utilise the vehicle in a second life again, still with a corporate client, and then third life actually utilising it as a shared vehicle.”
That model may help address one of the ongoing fleet concerns around EV residual values. Rather than relying solely on the wholesale used-vehicle market at end of term, vehicles could remain productive within a corporate or shared-mobility environment.
Tulloch said this could support both EV utilisation and wider decarbonisation objectives.
“We think that helps with the decarbonisation story,” he said. “We think that helps us take bigger steps into the EV proliferation in fleet.”
Moving beyond separate fleet systems
A key challenge will be ensuring mobility services do not become another disconnected platform for Fleet Managers to administer.
Tulloch said Custom Fleet’s intention is to combine its traditional fleet management services with Carbn’s technology, data and sharing capability in a more integrated customer experience.
“Clients don’t really think in silos, they don’t want to operate in silos, and they don’t want a Fleet Manager and a separate mobility solution, and then sustainability and data coming from over here,” he said.
“They’re really looking for something that’s integrated that solves real business problems.”
Custom Fleet is working towards a “single pane of glass” experience, where clients can access different elements of fleet and mobility management through one portal.
That could include traditional vehicle leasing and management, pool vehicle booking, car sharing, utilisation data and sustainability reporting.
For government fleets and larger organisations with multiple sites, Tulloch sees particular potential in a shared fleet model that sits between internal pool vehicles and public car-share services.
“You’ve got less vehicles, but that shared fleet that different customers of ours are able to access,” he said.
“It allows everyone to do more with less, because the vehicles are there and available.”
Australian opportunity
While Carbn has historically operated in New Zealand, Custom Fleet sees scope to bring the model to Australia.
Tulloch said Australia has been slower than New Zealand to adopt mobility-style solutions, but conditions are changing. Fuel cost pressure, broader EV adoption, emissions standards and the need for organisations to manage fleet costs are creating stronger reasons to consider a different operating model.
“There is a large opportunity for us to actually take the great that we have and can build in partnership and bring it into the Australian market as well,” Tulloch said.
“We think that now is the time we can actually start to gain significant traction with a product and offering like this.”
For Fleet Managers, the practical question will be whether shared mobility can reduce the number of vehicles required without compromising access, operational availability or employee productivity.
The Carbn investment suggests Custom Fleet is preparing for fleets where ownership, leasing, sharing and connected mobility sit alongside each other, rather than being managed as separate programs.
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