ORIX Australia Corporation (ORIX) has launched an online platform that aims to help small and medium businesses to select their vehicles more effectively – and make vehicle leasing and financing faster, easier and more secure.

According to ORIX, the new platform, MOOV, enables Australian SMEs to view and compare vehicle specifications and costs, see financing options at a glance, and order the vehicle. 

“Australia is home to 2.1 million SMEs and sole traders, many of which need a simple and reliable way to acquire vehicles,” ORIX Australia Business Solutions general manager Mary Moran said.

“MOOV was created specifically for those companies as they simply don’t have the time to visit dealers to compare vehicles or wait in call centre queues to discuss available financing options.

“By moving the entire process online, SMEs can reduce the hassle involved in the traditional vehicle buying process, while benefiting from ORIX’s fleet expertise and nationwide fleet-buying power.”

MOOV provides a range of financing options including finance lease, operating lease, business vehicle loan or buying outright.

Ms Moran said an advantage of leasing was it provided SMEs with cash flow predictability “and may free up capital that can be better invested elsewhere in the business”.

Regardless of the financing option selected, she said, associated vehicle related expenses, such as fuel, tolls and scheduled maintenance, can be bundled together with the lease payments into a single monthly itemised invoice for convenience and transparency.

“We want to provide a more efficient experience for all of our SME customers,” Ms Moran said.

“Recent news of tightening credit conditions may lead them to consider financing options beyond traditional sources. The flexibility of our MOOV platform, backed with our expertise in fleet solutions, provides SMEs with an easy and transparent way to explore flexible financing options to meet tomorrow’s challenges, which for many SMEs, includes a thorough revaluation of what mobility actually means to their business. 

“SMEs can now do this all online at their leisure, wherever they are, reducing common frustrations with acquiring a vehicle.” 

ORIX Australia is part of the New York Stock exchange-listed ORIX group, a global diversified financial services organization. In the Asia Pacific region, ORIX is reportedly one of the largest fleet management operations through its OneView customer portal which offers vehicle pooling and telematics platforms, assisting businesses to get more value from their vehicles and better managing the evolving risks of a mobile workforce.

www.orix.com.au

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SAN JOSE California has been selected by German automotive giants Bosch and Daimler as the city for pilot trials of a new world-leading automated ride-hailing service.

Located on the southern shore of San Francisco Bay in Silicon Valley, and with more than one million inhabitants, San José is the third biggest city in California. It is planned to be the pilot city for trials, targeted to begin during the second half of 2019, of the highly and fully automated driving (SAE Level 4/5) on-demand ride-hailing service recently announced by Bosch and Daimler.

Using automated Mercedes-Benz S-Class vehicles, Bosch and Daimler propose to offer the service to a selected user community in the San Carlos/Stevens Creek corridor between downtown and west San José. With its population expected to grow 40 percent in the next two decades, the metropolitan area faces growing transportation challenges. The San José city administration wants to prepare itself for a future in which autonomous cars hit the streets. 

“The pilot project is an opportunity to explore how autonomous vehicles can help us better meet future transportation needs,” San José Mayor Sam Liccardo said.

Daimler AG vice president for its Drive Technologies and Automated Driving division, Michael Hafner said, “Since many years we consequently push autonomous driving. With this pilot we will generate valuable insights to connect fully automated vehicles in the best way with users of future mobility services.”

Robert Bosch GmbH senior vice president of the Automated Driving business unit, Stephan Hönle said, . “We have to rethink urban transportation. Automated driving will help us complete the picture of future urban traffic.”

The on-demand ride-hailing service app operated by Daimler Mobility Services will demonstrate how mobility services such as car sharing (car2go), ride-hailing (mytaxi), and multi-modal platforms (moovel) can be intelligently connected.

The test operation will provide information about how highly and fully automated vehicles can be integrated into a multi-modal transportation network. The intent is to provide a seamless digital experience, in which a selected user community will have the opportunity to hail a self-driving car, monitored by a safety driver, from a designated pick-up location and drive automatically to their destination.

AUTOMATED APPEAL

With their joint development work on highly and fully automated driving (SAE level 4/5) in urban environments, Bosch and Daimler aim to improve the flow of traffic in cities, enhance road safety, and provide an important building block for the way traffic will work in the future, Dr Hafner said.

Among other things, the technology will boost the attraction of car sharing.

Without compromising driving safety, it will allow people to make the best possible use of the time they spend in their vehicles, and open up new mobility opportunities for people without a driver’s licence, he said.

Bosch and Daimler associates involved in the development project work together in teams in two regions: in the greater Stuttgart area in Germany and, in the US, around Sunnyvale in Silicon Valley between San José and San Francisco.

Bosch’s Dr Hönle said since they share the same office space, rapid communication across working disciplines is ensured, and decision-making paths are short. At the same time, they can draw on the combined know-how of their colleagues in the parent companies.

Dr Hönle said the two companies’ associates were jointly developing the concepts and algorithms for the highly and fully automated drive system. Daimler’s task is to bring the drive system into the car. The company is providing the necessary development vehicles, test facilities, and vehicles for the test fleet.

Bosch, which has had a manufacturing presence in Australia since 1907, is responsible for the components specified during the development work, such as sensors, actuators, and control units.

For test purposes, Bosch and Daimler use their laboratories and test rigs, plus their respective test sites in Germany. Since obtaining its Autonomous Vehicle Testing Permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles in 2014, Mercedes-Benz has been testing automated vehicles in the Sunnyvale/California region.

Since 2016, it has had similar approval for the greater Stuttgart area in Germany. In early 2013, Bosch was the world’s first automotive supplier to test automated driving (SAE level 3) on public roads in Germany and the US.

www.bosch.com.au

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THE GROWING demand for energy, driven by the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs), could lead to greater unpredictability in electrical grids according to a new study by Australian EV charging infrastructure company Tritium and global research group LEK Consulting.

The study warns that utilities globally must urgently take a proactive approach to planning their future networks.

The study highlights statistics around sales of EVs which show there is a ‘clustering’ effect, where some suburbs, streets, and locations have a higher proportion of EV ownership – and this has been highlighted in journals such as Nature magazine. This clustering has the potential to overload local electricity infrastructure, especially the feeder lines – in Australia that is mostly in the form of street ‘poles and wires’. 

“There are significant opportunities for network owners, operators and energy retailers as EVs are one of the few growth drivers for many developed energy markets, and also enable the opportunity for utilities to build closer customer relationships,” said LEK Consulting principal Natasha Santha said.

“But utilities need to be proactive in planning for a future scenario of significant EV adoption, especially in a world where spending capex on additional infrastructure at the cost of the consumer is no longer a palatable response.

“The real challenge for utilities is managing the peak demand increase and greater unpredictability that comes with greater EV adoption. EV charging has an element of randomness that needs to be managed; this can stress local infrastructure and heighten the need for increased network investment.

“The good news is that we have time to prepare in Australia. Given the expected pace of adoption, and time it will take to turn over the car parc (a European term that describes the numbers of registered vehicles in a region), grid owners have sufficient time to prepare for the change.

“While EV uptake in Australia is still in its infancy, it is growing, and networks need to prepare for this now. As the need for the deployment of public fast chargers is required in Australia, utilities will need to be ready to turn around new connections quickly.”

Among other findings, the study found the expected increase in overall energy demand was relatively modest in the short to medium term.

EV DEMAND ESTIMATES

In 2017, the estimated electricity demand from all EVs was 54 TWh equating to just 0.3 percent of global electricity demand. With a predicted 125 million EVs on the road in 2030 – and for simplicity researchers are assuming a similar level of battery energy efficiency as today, although it is likely to be higher – the overall EV share of energy demand would increase to only 6.3 percent.  

However, owning an EV will increase a household’s electricity consumption by about 50 percent. This calculation assumes average household use of 5,700 kWh of electricity per year, and the average EV consumes 3000 kWh of electricity per year driving 15,000km per year.

If multiple houses on a single street decide to charge simultaneously, there may be insufficient capacity in the feeder lines to deliver the required level of power. For example, assuming utilities make no changes to their infrastructure and EV charging is unmanaged, and EV owners mostly charge at the end of the traditional workday when they return home, overlaying the impact of EV charging on a local network – with 50 percent EV adoption – would drive peak demand up by about 30 percent.

As the demand for EVs increases, there will be a growing requirement for charging infrastructure. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that by 2030 the number of charging stations required will exceed 130 million units, which is close to 30 times the current installed box.

Further, the study found the development of high-power charging infrastructure may have a more manageable initial impact for network operators. High power chargers, up to 350kw each, are typically installed in a park or group of chargers. While these groups of high-power chargers equate to very large (1MW+) connections, the charger owners will deploy the appropriate infrastructure adjacent to the charging equipment at the time of installation.

FIVE MEASURES

The study outlined five measures utilities should consider, both to stabilise future grid behaviour and ensure the rise of EVs maintains its pace.

Design tariffs and demand response programs: Utilities need to begin preparing incentive structures to manage residential chargers, such as time of use EV tariffs that can shift customer charging behaviour alleviating local feeder stress. They could glean lessons from South Australian and Queensland networks, which are trialling new tariffs to encourage households with electric hot water systems to heat them in off-peak periods.

Utilise smart software: Managed charging uses software to schedule home charging throughout the night avoiding the risk of EV owners all plugging in during the evening peak, using lessons learned from such measures as air conditioning incentive programs.

Improve grid information: Provide clear and detailed information publicly to businesses and entrepreneurs looking to invest in and install public charging infrastructure. For example, PG&E, a Californian utility, has created an interactive mapping tool for network capacity highlighting the locations on its network where existing equipment has the capacity and is ready to be utilised for EV charging.^.

Assess adjacent opportunities from charging infrastructure: Utilities should begin to explore if there are other opportunities that arise from the deployment of charging infrastructure, such as stationary battery storage, to reduce grid augmentation costs and enable charger deployment in areas of the network that would otherwise be prohibitive.

Trial, test, and work with charging manufacturers: Collaboration and joint research will enable utilities to be at the forefront of emerging vehicle, charging, and grid integration technologies.

www.lek.com

www.tritium.com

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THE NEW Volvo Cars Brisbane North dealership adds the Swedish carmaker’s renowned ‘safety and style’ to LMM Holdings’ impressive collection of motor marques that already include Ferrari, BMW, Mini, Alfa Romeo and Fiat.

LMM Holdings Pty Ltd, a joint venture between Martin Roller, Marvin Burke and Sime Darby Motors, opened its new Volvo Cars Brisbane North dealership at 773 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley in June. 

LMM has focused on assembling an impressive stable of European brands – Ferrari, BMW, Mini, Alfa Romeo and Fiat is not a bad start – and officially acquired the Volvo franchise after an extensive review process.

Following a substantial investment in the brand’s footprint, Volvo Cars Brisbane North is now responsible for all of Brisbane’s central, as well as the northern and western suburbs, Mr Roller said..

“It is a real feather in our cap to be awarded this famous brand and it is testament to our experience and reputation in the marketplace,” Mr Roller said.

“This move will now result in Volvo customers experiencing all that encompasses premium service – LMM’s promise of exceeding customers’ expectations which separates it from its competitors.”

The partnership with Sime Darby Motors is very significant for the dealership. Sime Darby Motors is one of the major motor vehicle players in the Asia Pacific region, with a presence in Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Macau, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and increasingly Australia.

The Volvo Cars Brisbane North acquisition is part of Sime Darby Motors’ fast-emerging Australasian growth strategy.

www.volvocarsbrisbanenorth.com.au

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