Kit Wisdom shares how preparations for this year's Explorer EV Rally are going - and what we can expect from Team Tusker
This is second year that Tusker will have participated in the EV Rally; what made you decide to get involved again this year?
I think it’s really important to continue the awareness of the suitability of an electric car for most and how affordable it is through salary sacrifice. At Tusker, we’re focused on helping as many people as possible into a new or pre-loved EV and so the Rally helps us demonstrate the practicality of driving an EV over longer distances without concern. It also helps us dispel some of the myths that still exist surrounding EVs and their suitability for drivers and EV infrastructure as we can show first hand how we manage longer distances.
We also had so much fun in 2024 – our teams really enjoyed taking the EVs on the road, taking part in our 'Tuskeroke' as well as getting to network with our Lex Autolease colleagues and others in the industry.
What were your highlights from last year’s Rally?
There were a number of great highlights – I think one of the top ones was taking our 'Tuskeroke' on the road. We’ve been doing it internally for a number of years now but for the EV rally, we encouraged our drivers to do it en route. Everyone was really keen to take part and we got so much engagement from our LinkedIn posts – even with song requests coming through!
There were some long days but so incredibly worthwhile as it also gave us the opportunity to chat with some of the drivers about the cars and the challenges (or lack of as the case may be), and how the rally has helped dispel some myths.
We also visited some of the Kwik Fit sites with our guest from Kwik Fit, which was really good for our leadership team to do – understanding how we can work better together is central to providing a better experience for our drivers.
Did you learn anything on last year’s Rally that will help you this year?
To remember to pay for car parks at the hotels! In all seriousness, we learned a lot about scheduling the time for the checkpoints and ensuring that we have more than one driver per car for each day – especially the day of the longest drive – some of our drivers were with team members who couldn’t drive the cars and that made it a challenge for them.
I think we’ll also have more fun this year as we’re in friendly competition with our colleagues from Lex Autolease as we all represent the Lloyds Transport team. A little healthy competition will make things even more interesting!
What improvements do you hope to see on the charging infrastructure?
I think it’ll be the number of them along any of the days’ routes that will be surprising – the infrastructure has increased so much in the past year or two that really, they’re everywhere now – or there’s plans in place for them to be. I’d really like the team to demonstrate how easy it is now – long gone are the days of having 27 apps on your phone to access all of the different chargers.
It’ll be really interesting for us to be able to demonstrate the non-motorway infrastructure – I think a lot of people are aware of the services on the motorways having a lot of chargers now, but outside of that, I think we’ll see chargers in places that, if you’re not an EV driver, you might not expect.
I’ve driven an EV for quite a few years now, so I know where I’ll likely find one, and the apps I can use to search for them, so demonstrating the sheer volume of charge points will be good for those who remain sceptical.
Is there a particular message you will be promoting on the rally?
Our Tusker mission is to help the UK drive a better car which is why we’re committed to promoting the affordability and peace of mind of driving an EV through salary sacrifice. We’re also bringing one of our pre-loved cars – so a car that has had a previous Tusker driver, along with a new car, to show that for those who want an affordable alternative to a brand new car, there is one available through salary sacrifice.
We’re hoping to have the same model of car as pre-loved and as new to show that actually, there’s not that much difference with cars that are a couple of years old – and to dispel that myth about battery degradation.
Please tell us about Team Tusker - who is driving and in what vehicles?
We want to get as many of the Tusker team involved as possible and so we are currently putting together the names of all the volunteers who want to take part. It’s still early days to know who will be driving which car and when, but I’ll certainly be doing one of the days again as it was so good to be involved with the event last year. We’ll also have some activities for the teams to do across the days as well and will also be asking for some audience participation!
Please tell us about Tusker's future plans and how it can help fleets with their net-zero ambitions?
At Tusker, we’re dedicated to reducing emissions by helping people drive low emission cars. Caring for the environment is incredibly important to us and we’ve been offsetting the tailpipe emissions and grid charging requirements of the cars we put on the road through our schemes* against verified carbon projects and additionally planting UK trees for every two tonnes of carbon we offset through these projects.
We can help organisations with the sustainability agenda by ensuring we do the same offsetting for their cars on the scheme so they know they’ll have less impact on our environment and also help with the promotion of the suitability of electric cars, supporting planet positive mobility and a brighter more sustainable future.
About Kit Wisdom
Kit has 20 years of leadership experience in the automotive leasing and mobility sectors, working in a variety of commercial and operational leadership roles at Enterprise Rent-ACar, Alphabet, Tusker and LBG.
Following successfully launching Enterprise Car Share in the UK market, in 2012 Kit joined Alphabet to launch the BMW Group’s Corporate CarSharing proposition and e-Moblity products in the UK, working at the forefront of sustainable mobility innovation. During 2015 Kit led the integration of ING Car Lease UK’s Operational functions into Alphabet GB.
Kit joined Tusker in 2018 as COO, where the senior leadership team transformed the business, firmly establishing Tusker as the market leader of Salary Sacrifice in the UK and successfully transitioned Tusker into LBG ownership.
Kit has an active role in the UK automotive leasing industry, having chaired or supported a number of BVRLA committees for Technical Operations, Residual Value and Remarketing, as well as Fleet and Leasing.
*Please note, we use carbon offsetting for vehicle tailpipe emissions and grid charging emissions only. We do not offset the carbon footprint to manufacture the vehicle.