Tom Bateman

As a fleet manager, which are your technicians’ least favourite times? The January days when the workshop simply never warms up? Or the August days when it never cools down? Neither are pleasant to work in. But the temperature is affecting far more than your team. Both hot and cold temperatures impact a 12-volt battery’s […]

You pull a van into the workshop, and the battery reads flat. It hasn’t moved for months, and nobody has started it in weeks. You have two options. The first is to buy a new battery, swap it out and get the vehicle back on the road. The second option is to try and reactivate

With smartphones and laptops, everyone’s always telling us, “Don’t overcharge them”. But is it the same for an EV? What about all those people who claim that overcharging an EV is impossible? It’s a confusing time to be an EV owner, so as a workshop specialising in EVs, you’ll want to know exactly what to

It’s one thing to have a fleet vehicle that doesn’t start on a cold morning. That knocks things back a bit in your workflow, but it’s manageable. The real issue arises when a car, van or lorry fails to start mid-route. Especially if it’s all alone, parked on a pavement somewhere in the countryside. Then,

Fast charging is convenient. If your fleet truck or van needs a quick turnaround or to get started on the side of the road, a rapid top-up gets it moving again. Wonderful. But are there hidden costs? These days, the topic of fast charging is quite widely discussed. And people often talk about it with a

Petrol and diesel engines have depended on their batteries ever since the invention of the starter motor. They’re the lifeblood of what makes your fleet lorry, truck, van or car start, activate its alarm, arm its central locking and, on some small level, power its electrical appliances. Batteries convert chemical energy into electrical energy. Every

Your driver arrives long before dawn to take the already-loaded trailer of goods down to another depot 300 miles away. You serviced and replaced the lorry’s battery just a few months ago. Everything should be fine. But it isn’t. The driver climbs into the cab, blowing their cuppa to cool it down, and puts the

Your workshop phone rings. A driver reports that one of your trucks has been parked up for a few months. It was meant to be a spare unit, ready to roll when demand picked up again. But when the time comes to bring it back into rotation, the battery is, of course, flat. The driver