Podcast Episode 4: Sustainability, Alternative Fuels and EVs

Matthew Dziak: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Fleet Code, a podcast brought to you by Fleetio where we'll dive into the latest fleet trends, technology and best practices. Get the inside scoop as we decode the challenges of fleet management.

Tim Venghaus: [00:00:22] Just coaching your drivers on more efficient behavior. I've heard an example, trucks that travel at 75 miles per hour use 25% more fuel and traveling 65 miles per hour. That's a big number.

Matthew Dziak: [00:00:35] In this episode of The Fleet Code we discussed fleet sustainability, including vehicle emission reduction, carbon neutrality, alternative fuels and electric vehicles.

We welcome Stephanie Wittmann channel marketing manager at Fleetio, and joining us to lend his expertise. Tim Venghaus. Tim is a director of business development at GreenPrint, a corporate sustainability technology solutions provider. Tim. Thanks for joining us today.

Tim Venghaus: [00:01:00] It's my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Matthew Dziak: [00:01:02] Absolutely. And then we also have Stephanie from Fleetio. Stephanie, thanks for joining us.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:01:06] Hey Matt. Thanks for having me.

Matthew Dziak: [00:01:07] Yeah. So Tim, from a fleet's perspective, I know that you're in Atlanta and I know that Atlanta is two 85 has been the more difficult bottlenecks for some of these trucks. And I know that you're back in the office, but I'm sure some of the elements of working remotely over the past year, at least helpful for your commute.

Tim Venghaus: [00:01:24] That has been a welcome part of COVID is working from home. I'm actually fortunate that I didn't have a terrible commute to begin with, but I think it's pretty common for folks to have 45 minutes to an hour, a lot of time given back to people.

Matthew Dziak: [00:01:38] Even at our organization we definitely have been remote first and seeing other people adopt it has just been a breath of fresh air, but anyhow, I wanted to get right into it. Tim, what company do you work for and what is your company do?

Tim Venghaus: [00:01:50] So I work with GreenPrint. We are a public benefit Corp, like you said, located in Atlanta. And we are an environmental technology company that offers and builds turnkey programs, help businesses measure and reduce their environmental impact and drive positive ROI in the process.

Matthew Dziak: [00:02:06] And now what are your responsibilities there at GreenPrint?

Tim Venghaus: [00:02:09] I lead and focus on solutions from mobility, including our branded fleet program called greener mile.

Matthew Dziak: [00:02:16] Got it. And then in terms of the sustainability world, how did you really get involved in this.

Tim Venghaus: [00:02:22] Yeah. So I got involved in sustainability.

About 10 years ago. I had a background in a degree in business and had been working in sales and marketing and decided to go back to school, actually in my thirties, my early thirties to study ecology and really get into the science behind climate change. I was passionate about that. I still do love the science.

And after graduating, I wanted to find a position that allowed me to leverage both that business background and my new scientific background.

Matthew Dziak: [00:02:49] That's awesome. Taking your passions and really what your ideologies are in and turning that into a role that could suffice. So I wanted to get into carbon neutrality in terms of climate change and why that's so important.

Tim Venghaus: [00:03:01] So you just asked me what my background is, and I told you it was park business and part science. So I'll give you an answer that is part business and part science on the science side. It's pretty much universally agreed. Now that man made emissions of greenhouse gases are altering the climate. And we're seeing more and more examples of climate weirding, which is a term that I like better than climate warming.

Cause I think it's a bit more descriptive of what's happening. And this is in the extreme weather events that you used to be anomalous, but now are becoming more commonplace. So things like longer hurricane seasons with more late season storms, flooding, and heavy rainfalls, intense fires, et cetera. And scientists believe that if we can limit global warming to two degrees Celsius.

And that was the original goal of the Paris accord in 2015. Although now the new goal from the IPC, the intergovernmental panel on climate change believes that we should target 1.5 degrees. But if we can limit warming, we can hopefully avoid the worst effects of climate change. The only way that we can get to these goals is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, if not sooner.

So that's the science explanation. The business explanation is that I just believe it makes good sense. It seems like we've almost reached an inflection point of corporate action in pledges, uh, starting with the biggest companies, but expanding broadly from there. And inflection point with consumer awareness about these issues and demand for more social responsibility, better products, and around institutional forces on the investment side, BlackRock is the most well known example of this, but also others in pension funds that are demanding GHD, disclosures, and accountability, and all that is not even to get into anything about current and future regulations around carbon.

Matthew Dziak: [00:04:39] Yeah, we'll definitely touch on kind of the regulation side of things that later on in the show, but I'm curious from a fleet perspective, if I'm a fleet manager or someone who's running an operation for a fleet, how could I track and measure these carbon emissions and usages?

Tim Venghaus: [00:04:54] Yeah. There's a few ways that you can do it.

If a company is using a dedicated fleet payment card. And we actually do power, some carbon neutral card programs in market with companies like fuel Mandarin, calm data, et cetera, then emissions can be calculated directly from fuel consumption, using carbon coefficients available from the EIA and other agencies, or if they have a central Depot where all the vehicles returned to at night and they refuel from there and the company can monitor fuel, consumption that way.

As long as they know total gallons or leaders and the type of fuel gasoline or diesel or alternative fields. Alternatively, if a fleet is using a telematics software, something that's tracking usage of vehicles, tracking miles, driven by vehicle type, then emissions can be calculated that way. And there's even another way.

When we were designing greener miles, we wanted to contemplate situations. For companies of all sizes. So we even built a feature to approximate annual emissions, just on vehicle type for small businesses that might only have a handful of cars or trucks, and really don't have the data, but this still gets at that emissions by using averages from the EPA and the federal highway.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:06:01] So Tim, on the telematics angle, what would you say is the biggest benefit for fleets in terms of monitoring their emissions?

Tim Venghaus: [00:06:09] Yeah, I think data, and even outside of the purview of this conversation about carbon, I think with most changes in the business world, in the 21st century, it's access to data and algorithms.

And just the more that you can forecast and adapt and be responsive using software that can tell you vehicle usage and an intern emissions, then you're really getting the first step of the way there.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:06:33] In terms of why fleets should be concerned about this. And we're seeing more and more that modern consumers seem to care and be concerned about the values of the companies that they patronize, whether that's supporting a company because of their stance on social issues or how they've stepped up to support healthcare workers or those affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

But how do you see implementing sustainability practices as something that's helpful for brands in terms of maybe growing their consumer loyalty or even potentially helping them increase their sales?

Tim Venghaus: [00:07:04] Great question. And really as a company, that's our driving force is illustrating to our clients that sustainability is not just good for the planet, but it's good for business.

And here's how it can be. So, as I said before, I think it's just good business. There are, as you mentioned, studies out there, I've seen studies that indicate the companies that really lean into causes with a focus on making purpose core to their organizations grew at twice the rate of other companies of last decade.

You couple that with just awareness and most consumers today, being concerned about the environmental impact of their purchases, 64% claim to be purpose-driven buyers. And almost 90% said that given similar price and quality that they would switch who brand with a good cause. So businesses are always looking for any edge that they can get over the competition.

And sustainability is a powerful motivator to engender loyalty and Goodwill. Also, if you're asking why fleets should be concerned as it relates to a company's overall emissions, right? The fleet can be one of the single largest sources of emissions for a company, and they are, what's known as scope one or direct emissions.

Which basically just means that they are emissions that come from company owned and controlled assets. And so as companies are putting ESG and sustainability plans into place, those will initially focus on scope one and scope two initially, and scope two is basically electricity. And then down the road start to address their scope through emissions. So fleet emissions are something that does need to be addressed early on. And if I can just make one other point that is around why businesses should care about this. And you mentioned this, Stephanie, but I think there's a big opportunity here to differentiate your brand and really seize this moment and stand out as a leader in your industry.

As opposed to waiting and then having to play catch up with your competitors. I like to think of at least three obvious use cases where it can be especially important for a company. One is a mission driven organization or purpose, and sustainability is central to their corporate identity. There's things that they can do to reduce their impact, that they need to embrace those for the sake of authenticity of their brand.

And there's a company that comes to mind that we work with called compost now, which picks up compost from houses and businesses and processes that at their facilities, and then brings that back to local farmers to enrich the soils. There's B2B businesses that have large corporate customers or supply chain partners that are starting to evaluate ESG criteria and their RFPs, and even writing it into the supplier codes of conduct.

And we're aware of major retailers that are starting to survey their suppliers to collect baseline data about sustainability that will likely be used to inform goal setting targets and policies and possibly purchasing down the line. And then last businesses with partners or investors that are prioritizing sustainability.

Matthew Dziak: [00:09:43] So Tim in regards to emissions, and we know that the vehicles are obviously a component that is causing that. How is that impacting climate change?

Tim Venghaus: [00:09:52] Good question. I got to remind myself that not everyone studies this or went back to school for anything about this. And so without getting too heady, but still providing a bit of a primer.

For your listeners when a traditional internal combustion engine burns fossil fuels, they release carbon dioxide along with other greenhouse gases, like nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter that can affect air quality or smog on a localized basis. And so we probably remember. Um, about a year ago, right?

When the lockdown first started seeing these stories out of places like Southern California in India and China were just the air quality overnight seemed to drastically improve and people, all of a sudden could see the mountains in the distance. That's fantastic. And that should remind us of just how real these emissions coming out of tailpipes.

Are now we shouldn't celebrate too much. That emissions went down in general from a greenhouse gas perspective because unfortunately the science shows that they didn't take too much of a dip and they were already really backed up pre COVID levels. But as we've brought more clean and renewable energy online in our energy grids, the transportation sector has now surpassed the electricity in the U S at least as being the number one source of emissions at 28%.

So that's why I think it's important that we're having this conversation today, that bleeds address their emissions.

Matthew Dziak: [00:11:05] Tim, I love what you said about making purpose, the core of the company and the brand in terms of emissions and how that impacts climate change. What can fleets do in that regard to even limit some of their emissions? Maybe there's something around even fuel efficiency they can look into.

Tim Venghaus: [00:11:20] Yeah, exactly. Where can fleets even start? Right? You may have heard the phrase measure, reduce offset when talking about sustainability. This is basically a distilled rule of thumb for sustainability strategies in general. And what it's basically stating is that the first thing to do, and this gets back to Stephanie's point about telemedics and having data.

The first thing to do is just understand your impact form and assessment on current emissions. That can guide your strategy. Moving forward, you can identify material or meaningful sources for your company, and then set goals. Once you understand this starting point where you are, then you can start to identify how you can actually reduce emissions.

These are good strategies because not only do they lower your emissions, but they also lower costs. If you think about using less fuel or less electricity, your offices, these would also impart actual cost savings or ways to improve efficiency in general, with your operations. Those will come with costs and then last offset, any unavoidable ambitions.

This is how companies like Microsoft and Amazon that are making these big net zero or carbon neutral emissions are getting to that point.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:12:22] So Tim, I know that people are starting to talk more and more about alternative fuel sources. So what kind of field sources are out there now that a fleet can consider? And could you maybe talk a little bit about what the latest is in terms of bio diesel or renewable energy sources for them?

Tim Venghaus: [00:12:40] Yeah, there's a lot of things that fleets can do. And right off the bat, without even talking about changing vehicles or changing fuels, there are some low hanging fruit options for fleet managers and for the actual drivers for the fleet managers, you can start by evaluating and optimizing your routes.

And this gets back, I think, to having a good telematics solution. It's also important that you follow maintenance schedules and keep your vehicles tuned up so that they're running and performing as efficiently as possible. And keep tires properly inflated for fleets with heavy duty trucks, you can also install aftermarket, aerodynamic devices like airfoils or side skirts that can reduce drag or use different types of tires, like low rolling resistance tires that I've heard can improve efficiency by 5%.

So there's some products you can do, or you can just do some coaching internally. And I did read even a study that said, The just coaching your drivers on more efficient behavior can lead to almost a 10% efficiency gain. Another thing that I think is important to do anytime you're implementing new policies is just involve everyone at the company, right?

Hold a company wide meeting and talk about why you're doing these things and get people excited about it. So it's not just one more thing that management is trying to troll on their lives, but to say, Hey, we're doing this because. We want to do better by the environment and we want to reduce our emissions.

And so then you'll get more buy-in across the board for the actual drivers. There's a lot of things that they can be doing. And this goes back to that comment about coaching, but things like using cruise control, reducing speed, less heartbreaking, and fast accelerating and reduce idling time. Those can all decrease fuel consumption and lower emissions.

And I think, especially with medium and heavy duty vehicles, those actions have an even greater impact on efficiency. And I've heard as an example, trucks that travel at 75 miles per hour, use 25% more fuel than traveling 65 miles per hour. But that's a big number. The EPA smart way. Is a great resource for this and for fleets, granted that they do paler most of their material towards the leads with larger vehicles and those in the freight space.

But nonetheless, they have some good information. And I think maybe one last point about why it's good to have strong data and a good telematics system, right. Is that. This feedback loop, right? You're getting a lot of valuable feedback on these things. As a fleet manager, you can evaluate this and some of the same behaviors that I talked about I'd improve efficiency, also improve safe driving scores, basically just less aggressive driving, which can also help with discounts on insurance policies. So there's a double silver lining.

Yeah, it really seems like it all kind of ties in together. That's super interesting about lowering your speed by 10 miles per hour in a truck, and that increasing your efficiency so much that you wouldn't think that 10 miles would really deal that much of a difference.

I was surprised when I read that too. And just again, getting into larger vehicles with manual transmissions, shifting gears at the right point and driving it at lower RPM loads and also increase efficiency.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:15:35] Yeah, it's a lot of things to consider, especially for a fleet manager. What would you say about alternative fuel sources? Do you think that's something that fleets should be looking into?

Tim Venghaus: [00:15:46] Yeah. Th this is an exciting area and I'm happy to give some information, although I'm not a fuels expert, but I do try to read a lot about it, but the good news is that there are more options available now than I think ever before.

And a lot of cool promising new options coming out. Most people are probably going to already be aware of ethanol and ethanol blends. So conventional corn based ethanol as a CIA or carbon intensity, almost half of conventional gasoline. Most places are already blending 10% ethanol, but 15% is currently approved for use in model year, 2001 and newer light duty vehicles.

So you might already be using blends up to 15%. And if you own flex fuel vehicles, then you can run on up to 85% plan. That's 85. Isn't always available everywhere. And I think if you live in the middle of the country, you're more likely to find stations that offer that just because that's where the product's being grown similar to ethanol.

But on the diesel side, you've got bio-diesel, which is typically blended with conventional diesels that at up to five to 20% blends. I've heard that five more common and you do want to make sure that you check with your OEM on recommendations for your specific conditions. And really if you're in areas with colder temperatures, where you could experience jelling, and then I think you mentioned renewable diesel, but that's really an exciting one that I've read about in the last year or two, which is newer to the market.

And still not really that readily available. It is on the West coast. Although I understand there are several refineries. Either being built now or being refurbished process, this product, and the first company that I heard about making it, his nest egg out of Finland. And they've got some great information on their website about their renewable diesels, but basically it has up to 80% lower emissions.

It's fully compatible with all diesel engines has fewer impurities. So it burns cleaner and more efficiently has a higher cetane number. And it does great and cold weather. It was invented in Finland after. All right. So they know about. Cold weather. And all of those fuels I just spoke about can run and really traditional vehicles excluding 85.

You have to have a flex fuel vehicle for that. And then there's, what's known as advanced technology vehicles, and those can run on natural gas, either CNG or LNG. I think around propane sometimes called auto gas and then there's hydrogen, which powers fuel cell electric vehicles. And then there are the conventional battery electric vehicles and both of those last two run on electricity and produce no tail pipe emissions within electric.

You also got hybrid EBS and plug-in hybrid EDS. So all this is just to say that there really is a lot changing in the marketplace in terms of fuels and in terms of vehicle types. And it will be interesting to see where it plays out and what really ends up finding success and getting a toehold with consumers and businesses.

And if anybody's listening and wants to know more that the department of energy has got alternative fuels data center, that has a great website and resources to learn more about these fuels and even where to find gas stations that offer them and route planners.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:18:41] That's great, Tim. So obviously a lot of every company is focused on their bottom line. They want to see a return on anything that they invest in. How would you say that sustainability practices can help deliver ROI?

Tim Venghaus: [00:18:55] Yeah. Good question. And this kind of gets to the meat of it. Why should we care? Pretty much all the ways we discussed to reduce emissions will deliver a positive ROI in the near term.

Right? As they go hand in hand with improving efficiencies, lowering, consumption, lowering costs. But the other way that I believe sustainability and deliver more meaningful and longer lasting return is by strengthening the value of your brand and not just with consumers, but also with employees. People want to work for organizations with a purpose, as much as they want to buy from organizations, purpose.

And when you're trying to hire and retain, recruit talent, especially young people, this is something that matters a lot to them. So you're going to find that you're able to get a lot of the brighter and more calender people attracted to your company. If you are addressing these issues that matter to them.

And so all that is to say that this is why I think it's important, be strategic and intentional about your sustainability plans, about the goals and how you intend to communicate that story, both outward and inward. It's important that it clear and transparent and authentic messaging so that your customers understand you. And so that they believe you.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:20:03] And do you see any potential value add ons to that?

Tim Venghaus: [00:20:06] Yeah, one thing that we haven't discussed, which seems to be developing or getting more important, I guess each day are the financial benefits that can come with a high ESG performance. And so more recently, I've heard about even preferential access to capital firms, meeting higher ESG scores and get better interest rates.

These are known as sustainability linked loans. Now there's going to be conversations in the treasury at companies and with financial departments about these other external benefits that can come with performing well when it comes to them. ESG. And then that doesn't really even talk about valuations and stock prices, which tend to outperform the market for these companies that score well on ESG. Well, you've got fund managers that are looking to ESG metrics in general, as an indicator.

Matthew Dziak: [00:20:53] In regards to hitting some of those goals. We know that carbon offsetting is one potential for fleets. What exactly is that? And how does it work?

Tim Venghaus: [00:21:01] Great question and definitely something that probably not everybody is familiar with.

So it's worth touching on here. So earlier in our conversation, I mentioned the mantra of measure, reduce and offset. Offsetting plays a crucial role in providing companies a way to compensate for those remaining and unavoidable emissions. And that also can deliver positive environmental benefits in the immediate term.

And quite frankly, offsets are necessary. If we want to get to the global goals of net zero emissions. If you're asking how they work, think of carbon offsets as a reduction in emissions, Kering, somewhere else on the planet. So one carbon offset or a credit represents the reduction or the capture of one metric ton of CO2 E.

And that E stands for equivalents. And all that really is a way to represent the various local warming potentials of different gases as a constant unit. So you've got methane and CO2 and other gases. And so it just represents it as a constant unit. And these can be achieved through projects like reforestation and other nature based solutions.

Offsets can come from landfill gas capture, which is capturing methane and come from renewable energy projects, like wind geothermal regenerative ag that stores carbon in soils. Et cetera, but there's really a lot of cool projects out there, including some new ones that are in R and D that hold a lot of promise.

I think when we're talking about ways that accompany can reduce its impact and hit its ESG goals, then carbon credits need to be a part of that strategy, at least as a bridge solution, especially for sources that are difficult to decarbonize like fleas, like we discussed above, even if you're running some of these alternative cleaner fuels.

You still have a carbon footprint. And so how do you address that? And you can be strategic when choosing your projects, selecting ones that may correlate more to the industry that you're in or that deliver more. Co-benefits such as United nations, sustainable development goals. At the end of the day, though, it's very important that you only invest in credible certified projects that meet globally accepted and science-based criteria.

You want projects that are publicly registered with exchanges that mandate rigorous methodology to monitor report. And verify so that there's complete transparency into their project. And then one additional step that we've taken and we've always done. Our clients is an independent third-party verification by a big four accounting firm.

And we've actually done research recently that indicates that this third party review and validation is really the most effective way to overcome concerns around authenticity. As many Americans are leery of corporate environmental claims and greenwashing.

Matthew Dziak: [00:23:38] Now, some of this can be a very politically divisive if you will. And I want to avoid that, but I would love to hear Tim, if you have any insight into new regulations or perhaps legislative updates that are on the horizon and how that might impact fleets.

Tim Venghaus: [00:23:55] Yeah, with the fuels and the vehicles, there's new things happening every day. And definitely this administration has a different stance towards climate change than the last administration.

One of the first executive orders that Biden signed after entering office was to re-enter the U S into the Paris agreement, along with signing some other orders that created a national climate task force. That's tasked with leveraging the federal governments. Buying power to help advance clean energy goals.

And just this week, actually, I think it was that he announced major infrastructure plan and get that ahead of $2.3 trillion budget amount. That includes in addition to updating bridges and roads and things like that include measures to curb use of fossil fuels and accelerate adoption of EVs. Outside of federal policies.

There are a host of city and state and regional needs such as one called the C 40 cities, which has 97 global cities, including several in the U S that are pledging net zero emissions by 2050 bans on ice vehicles starting at 2035 and beyond in 31 countries. Now, including in the U S and California, which is a huge market.

And I think some other West coast and even maybe New Jersey or considering these ZDV mandates think there's a dozen States that are starting to include mandates to OEMs to produce themselves or emission vehicles. And in 13 Northeastern and mid Atlantic States, there's a program called the transportation climate initiative, TCI.

Which is planning to cap transportation emissions starting next year. So I don't think there are any signs of this slowing down or going away. And I think it's another reason why you may as well be proactive about this right now, while you can, if you're a business owner.

Matthew Dziak: [00:25:32] You briefly mentioned EVs, and we can't possibly have a conversation about sustainability and alternative fuels without talking about electric vehicles. But what started with hybrids has really evolved to now all electric vehicles. And we're starting to see those OEMs that produce really fleet specific vehicles.

Those light duty, even large size vehicles that are getting into that, uh, potential class eights. And semi-trucks even, they're all beginning production or at least plans, if you will. So what role do you think EVs play in sustainability in that regard?

We hear a lot about EVs and Tesla's done an amazing job of really advancing that class of vehicle and making them cool and desirable. And I don't own one, but I sure would consider one when it's time to buy a new vehicle. And I think EVs will play a big role in reducing emissions in the transportation side, at least certainly, as you mentioned for passenger vehicles and for that light duty, medium duty class. I think many of the objections traditionally standing in the way of adoption are going away. Things like range, anxiety as battery packs get bigger. The availability of recharge points as we're building out infrastructure. It's easier and it will become even more easy to find places to recharge customer choice and available models.

I don't know if it's this year or next year, but it's a crazy number of new model EVs hitting the market and especially price. And I actually think that for fleet managers who are looking at total cost of ownership analysis, right, EVs are probably already a cheaper option when you consider. The reduced cost of fuel and reduce maintenance costs, centers, et cetera.

But you still have to get over that initial sticker shock of the upfront price. EVs are interesting though, in that, first of all, many people incorrectly assume that just because they're driving an AB that they're driving a zero emission vehicle. But in reality, the emissions have just been shifted from the tailpipe to the smokestack where the electricity was generated.

Now don't get me wrong. I love EVs. And they still have a much lower carbon intensity than any other traditional liquid fuels. And that will only continue to improve as we keep cleaning up our power grid, but there is still some emissions. Taking place at least today powering these vehicles. And then when you're talking about class seven and class eight trucks and airplanes and cargo ships, I think we will have a much harder time decarbonizing this part of the transportation sector.

And it probably won't be a one size fits all solution that we come to for the whole transportation sector with these heavier class of vehicles. I think we could see hydrogen or natural gas being used or them, or even carbon neutral diesel, which is really still the same fuel. But has been bundled with carbon offsets or direct air capture.

Tim Venghaus: [00:28:10] It's just a quest or an equal amount of CO2 as what is in the field. So that essence by burning that fuel, you're having a net neutral impact on emissions. I think EVs will play a big role and I'm bullish on the role they'll play in passenger vehicles and light duty. And I'm curious to see the role they'll play on heavier duty vehicles.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:28:29] Tim on a fun note on EVs. What's your favorite? You're getting a new one right now. Do you have one in mind that you would go to?

Tim Venghaus: [00:28:37] Oh man. So not to draw the wrath of Elon Musk because I really admire that guy and look up to him.

Matthew Dziak: [00:28:43] He listens to these episodes so choose your words carefully.

Tim Venghaus: [00:28:48] He follows you, doesn't it?

Yeah. I really liked some of the new Volvo models. I, in general, like their styling, maybe it's that I'm art Scandinavian. And I liked that kind of minimalist aesthetic was funny. He's done a good job of isolating his vehicles and his brand. Everything from the charge points that charge your Tesla are not the same as the hardware that charges other vehicles.

To the software in the vehicle and the self-driving software when it comes to the point that I'm making that decision. Hopefully not for a few more years. I don't know. That'll be an interesting one to consider because the Tesla's got better technology than I wouldn't want to buy a Volvo just because it looked better, but you know what?

I'm happy right now with my Acura, that's got 225,000 miles on it and no car payment and still gets me where I'm going.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:29:29] Yeah, I keep running that thing for sure.

Tim Venghaus: [00:29:31] Yeah. Funny actually the greenest vehicle you could drive is your current vehicle because of all the embedded emissions in the production process of that vehicle, get as much life out of your current vehicles.

Matthew Dziak: [00:29:40] That's great, Tim. Now, if anyone's interested in maybe learning more about GreenPrint, where can they go?

Tim Venghaus: [00:29:45] We attempted to cover a lot of information on a lot of heady and deep stuff in a relatively short period of time. So if anyone listening today wants to learn more or has heard something that they think work for their company, I certainly love to hear from you.

You can email me at tim@greenprint . You can also visit our website, which you may have guessed is greenprint.eco, or the website for greener miles. Again is more fleet focused and that's greenermiles.eco And we've got some nice free resources available for download on those websites.

Matthew Dziak: [00:30:18] This has been a really insightful conversation. And I learned a lot, Stephanie, thanks for joining us. And Tim, thank you so much for your time today.

Tim Venghaus: [00:30:26] Yeah. Thank you, Matt so much and Stephanie it was my pleasure to be here today. It's an exciting topic and I love to spread the good word and happy to hear from anybody listening that wants to know more.

Stephanie Wittmann: [00:30:36] I always learn so much for me, Tim. So we definitely appreciate your time today. It's been great.

Tim Venghaus: [00:30:42] Thank you.

Matthew Dziak: [00:30:43] Thanks for listening to the Fleet Code. If you're looking for a modern software solution to effectively manage your fleet, be sure to check out Fleetio.com/podcast to learn more. Join our monthly newsletter to stay up to date on all things, Fleetio. And don't forget to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn by following at Fleetio.