Your service vehicle may be built around assumptions that stopped being true years ago.
At Siemens, Adam Orth and his team went into the field to see how technicians were actually using their vehicles — and found vans carrying more empty space than equipment, underused shelving, and jobs that no longer required the same setups they once did.
In this episode, Adam explains how Siemens rethought parts of its service fleet around the work itself, from moving some roles into SUVs to redesigning upfits around what technicians actually need. He also shares why fleet leaders should question one-for-one replacement, get closer to the field, and be willing to change the vehicle when the job has already changed.
Connect
Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Element Fleet Management.
If your organization depends on a fleet of vehicles, it’s time to think about your fleet as a strategic asset. Learn more at https://www.elementfleet.com/.
Chapters
- 0:00 The wrong EV question every fleet is asking
- 2:12 Why Siemens is one of GM’s largest EV commercial customers
- 5:39 What Germany’s EV sales numbers reveal about US infrastructure
- 8:26 The question that should come before “which EV”
- 11:12 Throwing out the fleet playbook — and why it wasn’t just about EV
- 14:39 “The scroll of excuses” Adam hears every day
- 16:55 The revelation: from vans to Equinox
- 21:58 One ladder nearly killed the whole plan
- 23:36 The upfit rebuild — killing cookie-cutter shelving
- 27:23 “Hauling air” — what the field study actually found
- 29:27 How Siemens thought about the SUV strategy across states
- 32:32 What field feedback surfaced about charging speed
- 38:01 Wind, hills, cold, towing — the range argument fact-checked
- 51:46 The four things that quietly stacked in EV’s favor
- 53:46 Advice for fleets early in the EV transition