Case Study Melbourne City Council
At Melbourne City Council, Fleet Manager
Dave Allen is emphatic in his support of the
Mitsubishi leasing program for the organisation.
“We’ve had very positive feedback from
all the staff, and we’ve got a combination
of operational and executive vehicles [the
executives currently salary sacrifice for use of
the vehicles] and they’ve been really pleased
with the performance of them,” he says.
“We’ve just recently did a deal with Mitsubishi
to extend our older models with newer models
and we’ve just recently transitioned across in
the last few weeks.”
Allen and his team first entered into an
agreement with the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV
back in mid-2015.
“The lease rate that was offered to us at the
time was very competitive and even the lease
rate today 3 or 4 years later is extremely
competitive,” he says.
“For us it was a really good financial decision,
as well as having that fuel reduction for our
organisation as well.”
The role of the Outlander PHEVs traditionally
replaced other station wagon models that
the council were using previously such as
the Subaru Outback and the Ford Mondeo.
Operationally the council now doesn’t put
fuel in the cars given they rarely or never
travel more than 40km in a day – representing
significant savings for the entire PHEV fleet.
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“Essentially we now don’t need fuel for these
vehicles and that’s been a huge time and cost
saver for our operations,” Allen says.
“We’ve also never had any issues with
maintenance or any contractual issues with
Mitsubishi so essentially it’s an operating lease
and the support has always been there when
we’ve needed it.”
For the council, a huge bonus of the EV range
was how easily they slotted into their existing
charging infrastructure in their main carpark,
right in the heart of Melbourne’s busy CBD.
“The type 1 charging setup is the same we use
for our existing Nissan Leaf so for us it was
never an issue,” he says.
“We recently expanded our charging network
so that we have more charging stations
available for drivers but initially it wasn’t an
issue or a concern for us.”
Across the board, Allen says he’s been
“genuinely surprised” with just how robust the
vehicles are, while noting that the program had
now become an integral part of the council’s
operations.
“In our time we haven’t had any recall or
maintenance issues whatsoever and it’s been
great that now some of our executives have
also taken them on as part of a salary sacrifice
scheme,” Allen says.
“Had we gone with a leasing company or
purchased the vehicles outright it would have a lot
more difficult and expensive, so the direct leasing
program on the whole has worked very well.”