Prestige Parcel

In February of 2021, Prestige Parcel made a commitment to move towards a "greener" future . We said we will never buy another new vehicle powered by gasoline or diesel. We believed (and still believe) that this sort of action is needed to get the message across to manufacturers that the time is well past for moving away from vehicles running on fossil fuels. To get to a zero carbon based transport industry, certainly on the ground and at sea is going to need massive investment at all levels, and a population that really gets behind the idea. It can be done, and I believe it must be done, and if it means I will eventually let go of my much loved Turbo Subaru, well, I will miss it, but I realise its day is done.

Air travel is another issue, and on that I have no idea by who or how an effective solution can be found. One thing is for sure, it isn't going away, so all the more need to deal with ground and sea.

So I wish I could report that Prestige Parcel has made further great strides towards that zero emissions goal. Sadly I can't. We have made some Small steps, however.

In November of 2019 we took what I still believe was a significant step by buying our first Hybrid vehicle, a Used Toyota Rav4, replacing an old V6 Dodge Caravan. The Caravan had been part of our earlier effort to cut down our fuel bill when we moved away from old V8 powered vans. The hybrid Toyota gave us an average saving on the number of litres of fuel used of between 30% and 40%. We have now put over 75,000 kms on that vehicle and another story has emerged. In all that distance, our maintenance costs have been just tires and an oil change every 10 to 12 thousand kilometres. That's it !

In mid-2021 we decided we needed to add another vehicle, and we went looking for another Hybrid. "Good luck" said the Toyota dealer we had bought from previously. "When the price of fuel started to surge the price of hybrids went though the roof". To get another like the one we had was going To cost between $5k and $10k more than we had paid six months before - if we could even find one - and there was a waiting list for new ones. We settled for getting a Nissan Rogue.... and were pleasantly surprised that on the highway, at least, the Rogue was getting nearly as good mileage figures as the Toyota, so again, we were operating with less fuel than we would have with a minivan. In late Fall we needed to expand yet again. The price for a hybrid was now out of sight. This time we found a good deal on a Mitsubishi Outlander. Bigger than the Rogue and the Rav4, it too is producing superior mileage figures to our existing Caravans, so although we are not yet anywhere near our goal of a zero carbon footprint, we are doing better than we were.

So, what about the new vehicle market ? Again, nothing but blank faces when you ask at your local "Ram" dealer when their electric commercial vans will be available. They have no idea "when", or even "what" is coming down the pipeline. They DO have their Pacifica Hybrid, but still very expensive, and very hard to get.

Nissan ? Interest, and very definitely awareness. These guys know what we're talking about. They are selling quite a lot of "Leaf" sedans - as fast as they can get hold of them, given today's fuel prices. But absolutely no news of an electric Commercial van. The e-NV200 is undergoing a redesign for a new model to be released soon, with the option of a bigger battery and longer range. YES ! But when ? No one knows, and no decision has been made on bringing it into Canada. Certainly not before 2025.

Ford ! There is more news available about the e-Transit. No, you can't have one yet, but you can order one. Oh, and the 400 km range spoken of in all the earlier publicity ? "Our customers have told us they only need a 200 km range, so that's the way we are going to build it." Pricing guidelines, only approximate, apparently indicate it is going to be expensive. They are doing the usual , loading it up with all sorts of items that you usually pay through the nose for into the standard specification. Up goes the price. Oh yes, When ? Er, they're not sure.

The good part of this is that it looks like some customers may see one or two next year.

The down side for us is that we use our full size vans for long haul ( 250 to 600 km runs ). We might be interested in an e-Transit Connect (their minivan) with a range around 200 km, but even there most of our runs are longer than that. And apparently Ford have no plans for an electric minivan.

Toyota, sadly, don't sell a commercial van. Their passenger minivan is available as a Hybrid, but is hard to get and very expensive.

Now GM. A year ago, there was very little-known about what they were doing. But there is real hope here. GM have created a new commercial vehicle unit under the name of "Bright Drop" and they are completely re-tooling one of their plants in Ontario (Yes, in Canada ) to produce their vehicles. They have two prototype electric vans already running, based on their "Ultium" platform which underpins the new Cadillac electrics, the new Hummer pick-up truck and the newly announced e-silverado pick-up. The vans are known simply as the EV 600 and EV410, with the principal difference between them being their wheelbase (and consequently size). Range to be in the 400 km bracket, and "because they have been designed from the ground up as full electric vehicles" their price is supposed to be reasonable.

The viability of these vehicles seems to be in no doubt. The assembly plant in Ontario is due to open this fall, and in the meantime an initial batch of 500 is being built by a 3rd party manufacturer in the States. FedEx has swept up the entire batch of 500 and another US based carrier has ordered at least another batch. FedEx has already taken delivery of the first few off the line.

GM is also planning to sell - and apparently install - charging facilities for both these vehicles.

Wonderful news. 400 km range is probably the minimum we could use in a full size EV..... but we've looked at our usual runs, and we could manage that. With full production starting in Ontario this Fall, these vehicles could be on the streets next year although small customers will likely have to wait a while to have a chance to get a couple of them.

Still no pricing, and no information about how to get further information, but I'm optimistic, at least where GM is concerned. We'll still be stretching out the mileage on our used vehicles to make them last until the great electric revolution arrives, but at least we can see a light at the end of tunnel !

Ren
Prestige Parcel
Kamloops.

Somewhat to my shame, I see it is over a year since I posted here.... and what a year it has been, clearly dominated by the battle to get Covid -19 under control. There is no doubt everyone from the Federal government on down expected that it would be gone last Summer, only for a fresh wave based on the "Delta" Variant to sweep through IN the Summer, the season that usually sees the end of even the worst 'flu season. That was followed by "Omicron", the most infectious variant yet, and one which seemed to render the first round of vaccinations less effective than they had been against earlier variants. Booster shots became virtual necessities, and were made available quickly through the vaccination networks that had been set up earlier.

I believe we were very lucky with Omicron. It appears to have been less lethal than the previous variants. But I'm told it could just as easily have been the most lethal yet. Everything depends on how the variants mutate, and there are many places in the world where the virus is still largely unchecked, and still spinning off new variants. Just look at the situation in Hong Kong, a city that had been very successful in keeping down the infection levels up until now. Clearly "Omicron" (if that is even what it is. The Chinese government has never been very open about the whole Corona Virus pandemic) is still capable of jamming the healthcare systems virtually anywhere and killing a lot of people. Far, far more than the "common cold"

Don't throw away the masks or hand sanitizer yet, It's not over, despite what a lot of crazies running about and waving Canada flags would have us believe.

I'm going to stay away from the subject of the people waving flags at me for the most part, but I have two comments that I will make.

1. I really resent the way they have hijacked the use of Canada's flag as one of their means of self identification. To me, the Canada Flag represents everything that we stand for - or should stand for, and these people clearly don't.

2. Freedom cannot mean an individual has an enshrined right as a citizen of our country to put his or her fellow citizens at risk because they find some minor restrictions inconvenient. I acknowledge tgat some businesses have collapsed as a result, and others have struggled, but the government really has done all it can to help those weather the storm

I have no more to say on that.

Ren
Prestige Parcel
Kamloops, BC

Wishing to congratulate on opening his own business. He's been our preferred mechanic for a number of years and our business will be following him to CJM Auto Repairs.

Best of luck, Corey !

The Courier Industry and Climate Change.

The Transport industry in general is unfortunately a major contributor to carbon emissions and pollution. I won't even go into the situation in Maritime Transport with the massive bulk carriers in use on the high seas, but even in the trucking and courier businesses there is considerable inefficiency and high fossil fuel use. It's inevitable at the moment, because until fairly recently there has been little alternative to diesel or gasoline powered motors. What's more, many fleets use Owner operators, with their own equipment, from big rigs down to the "last mile" smaller vans. The use of Owner operators reduces the fleet operators from the need to invest in expensive equipment, and enables them to unload much of the risk and costs down to the individual operators. When times are tight, maintenance is often delayed, letting vehicles run in less than optimal condition.

Having said this, I have to say that much of the fault of this lies with both the government and with the vehicle manufacturers. Major carriers like UPS have generally tried very hard to make their fleets as "green" as possible by using alternative fueled vehicles in many situations. The big problem has been the lack of alternatives. Until Tesla's Elon Musk showed the possibilities of electrification a couple of years ago when he introduced his prototype electric "Big Rig", the fact that there has been quite a lot of research in electric or hybrid commercial vehicles has been almost a secret. Even now, two years later, where are they ?

The need is obvious. In our own very small company over half our vehicles do more than 50,000 kms every year. When you consider that the average vehicle on the road does less than 15,000, it is clear that we have a large carbon footprint. But it is not because we don't care.

What have we done to try to operate more responsibly ?

Even 25 years ago we were looking for alternative fueled vehicles. We have had propane vehicles and vehicles powered by natural gas. But we have also had both diesel and gas vehicles..... because there were no other choices. 25 years ago a courier fleet generally used mid sized vans powered by V8 motors. They were reliable, and seemed to run for ever. But they were neither economic nor efficient; propane conversions were expensive and difficult to maintain properly; and natural gas was even more difficult, and was very constrained in the range that it allowed the vehicle.

Over the years we worked to introduce more efficient and economic vehicles to our fleet . The "new" Dodge Sprinter (a rebadged Mercedes Benz) enabled us to decommission a 3 ton diesel truck, and we gained vehicles that carried all we needed yet used less than half the fuel. The other mid sized vans were replaced by smaller minivans.... gasoline, yet far more efficient than the old V8's. But even today, there is very little else we can do. Oh yes, it's coming, but I can't get a definite timetable for when we'll actually see some of the new "green" vehicles that are now being talked about.

What is being talked about ? Electric commercial vehicles are coming.... But oh so slowly. Nissan has an e-NV200 mini size commercial van. The gasoline version has been with us for several years. It has a range if almost 200kms on a full charge, which is more than enough for most in town delivery routes. Can we get one ? No. Why not ? Nissan already sell fairly successful electric cars here (the "Leaf"). But no, I'm told it's still being evaluated for the North American market. "It gets cold here".... yet I'm told it is available in Norway - in fact has been sold there for the past two years. It gets cold there too.....

It's probably unfair to single Nissan out like that. They did at least build such a vehicle, and a while ago. That it's not sold here is probably more the result of Nissan having made comparatively little effort to sell its commercial vehicles, concentrating on their passenger cars ("Zoom zoom !"). But seriously, Hybrid Electric vehicles have been around for the best part of ten years. The Toyota Prius is probably the most common vehicle used for Taxis today. Why ? Because it's amazingly efficient, and has good reliability too. But it's too small for Courier use.

If you look into What's available around the world you will quickly see that electric commercial vehicles are all over the place now in Europe and also in many parts of Asia. But not here. Our mainstay in Minivans has been the Dodge Caravan. They are inexpensive, reliable and fairly economical to run if driven sensibly. Fiat Chrysler even have a PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) minivan that has had a number of favourable reviews. But it is only available in the highest spec "Pacifica" minivan. Much the same size as the Caravan, but it is far more expensive. What's worse, when we asked a local dealer to give us a quote on a price on one, they declined to even do that as they had no idea when one might become available..... and we were talking about new ones, not a rare pre-owned one.

Still with Fiat Chrysler....... their large van, the Ram Promaster, is a European design called the "Ducato". That was scheduled to be available in Europe last year as a fully electric van, although its introduction may have been delayed by the chaos in the auto industry caused by Covid-19. Ask when it will be released here and all you are likely to get is a puzzled stare. As far as I know it has yet to occur to FCA North America that there may be interest in it.

Ford. Now, there is a possibility. Yes, an electric version of the Transit is expected to be launched this year..... oh wait..... well it may be next year. No one seems to know, and no-one has any idea what it is going to cost.

GMC ? They don't even have vans any more. Their mini-sized van is a rebadged Nissan, and they have nothing to compare to the Transit, ProMaster or Sprinter.

So where does a small courier go if they want to be ecologically responsible ?

We've given this a lot of thought, and late last year I made a decision for this company. THIS IS OUR COMMITMENT TO THE ENVIRONMENT. It won't give us a zero carbon footprint - or at least not for quite a while - but here it is:

WE WILL NOT BUY A NEW VEHICLE POWERED BY STRAIGHT GASOLINE OR DIESEL AGAIN. The next new vehicle that we buy will be either a hybrid, or a full electric vehicle. If there isn't a suitable one available when we need one, we will operate with pre-owned vehicles until such time as one IS available.

In October of last year we took the first step towards becoming the type of fleet that we wish to be by buying a Toyota RAV 4 Hybrid to replace one of our old Dodge vehicles. The RAV 4 is not big enough to replace all our Caravans, but on certain routes it is perfect. In just over 3 months we have put 12,000 kilometres on it. We were looking to achieve a 20% saving on fuel comparing one vehicle to the other. We actually achieved closer to 40% !

It has led us to look to see if we can do the same again for another driver, but we'll have to wait. With the strain that Covid put on our operation, we survived largely through the Federal Government's CEBA program. Unfortunately that has left us in a position of having to repay a minimum of $40,000 In the next two years. That will delay our move to a greener fleet. But our commitment remains. No more new gasoline or diesel.....

We will get there.

Ren Carroll
President.

In response to a comment that was brought to my attention, Darrell Latimer has not worked for my company, "Prestige Parcel", for about 18 months. I wish to state that Mr Latimer's opinions do not reflect the values of my company, and many are in fact completely contrary to our values.

Ren Carroll
Prestige Parcel Pick-up Ltd.

Despite the Covid-19 crisis Prestige is keeping its head above water. Some of our regular customers have had to close down for a while, and others have seen their volume of business decline drastically. We've seen a lot of very quiet days.

But We've also been working with the Interior Health Authority to move samples between some of the medical laboratories, which has gone some way to replace the lost business.

We've been following all the recommended hygiene protocols. To protect our customers our drivers wear masks and gloves for all pick-ups and deliveries and social distancing protocols are followed as far as possible.

Wishing everyone a safe passage through this crisis. Let's all try to be there when we get to the time when things can start to open up again.

STAY WELL!

I actually wrote a post last week, and thought I had put it up on this page, but it seems to have disappeared into the ether somewhere. So this is a second try..

Prestige Parcel is continuing to operate through the present crisis, supporting our customers and taking urgently needed packages wherever they are needed.

For everyone's protection all our staff are observing all the recommended protocols to avoid infection, and maintaining "social distancing" as far as possible. To enable this we are no longer requesting signatures at pick-up or delivery, but the driver will be requesting and recording the full name of the shipper or consignee.

We are available to our account customers 24/7....

Wishing the best of health to everyone.

OK, we 're well overdue to post something new, so here goes:

Firstly, to quell a rumour that seems to have started up, we are NOT permanently closed. It is business as usual, in our same office and warehouse on 12th Ave in Kamloops. The phone number has not changed.

With the acquisition late last year of a new Ford Transit we have increased our ability to handle fairly large loads, although the bulk of our business continues to be small, urgent packages. These have been largely in the high tech field, but we have also been seeing more on the medical side in the last six months or so.

To all our customers, please call Wendy, our warehouse and dispatch manager, whenever you need our services and she will be happy to help you.

To our major customers, 24/7 service is always available. ☺

I'm afraid I've ignored our page for quite a while..... but I recently noticed an increase in traffic to our page. At least someone is looking at it periodically. So I think I should put up the occasional post so that there will occasionally be something new on it.

Firstly, our regular Kelowna service is no longer running - Not even once a week now. The demand for it simply died. But that hasn't been all bad, as we are in the middle of our busiest time of the year. Not only are we running a large number of "hot shot" runs for our regular customers, we are now getting a number of requests from several companies "back east" to make urgent runs for them. Without the need for that daily run to Kelowna it has freed up an extra vehicle and driver to be able to meet these requests when they come in.

We do our best to provide all our customers a first class service - and I hope the new ones will stay with us and use us more frequently.

Western Canada - or BC, anyway, seems to be enjoying an excellent winter from the point of view of the tourism industry. Lots and lots of snow, and the ski resorts should be having a bumper season. I hope it continues well into the early spring.

Ren

Lately we've been bombarded with television commercials showing the new leader of the Conservative Party trying to drum up a fear of the government's proposals for income tax relating to small businesses.

As an owner of a small business it really irritates me to hear someone trying to earn political capital with a message that is - in my opinion - as much a lie as the Provincial NDP was putting out during the HST / PST debate. They seem to be relying on the fact that most people will take what they are saying at face value and not bother to check the facts.

I HAVE bothered to look at this issue, and it seems to me to be quite straightforward....

#1. Far from imposing a new "ruinous" tax on small business, the government is talking about LOWERING the small business tax rate.

#2. The issue of "Income sprinkling". This limits the ability of family owned businesses to spread the PROFITS of their company by assigning income to family members who are not in fact working in the business. This practice is quite common.... instead of paying income tax at the normal income tax rates on the full profit, owners would frequently assign "salaries" to other family members who would only be paying tax at minimal rates. This would have the effect of reducing the tax paid overall, allowing the owning family to keep a larger than normal part of the profit. Note... this is Income tax. It is based on the PROFIT of a company, but it does not reduce the profit. None of this kicks in unless you are making a profit already - and quite a healthy one, at that..

If the other family members are actively working in the business, there is no issue. But if they are not (children at school, for instance, and not even working part time for the business) then there is no question that it is simply a means to reduce income tax that is simply not available to the general public. This will not please some people - mostly people who are already quite well off. It really shouldn't be upsetting the vast majority of the public.

And yet the Conservatives clearly think that their very expensive "Mis-infomercials" are going to pay dividends at the next election. And it really annoys me that they clearly believe we are that gullible.

For the time being we are having to suspend our daily run into Kelowna. This has been done with considerable reluctance, but it is necessary. We will be continuing with one run a week for the time being, and it is likely that there will be other "on demand" runs. However these - by their very nature - will be unscheduled and on very short notice.

We will try to give those customers who have used our Kelowna service as much notice as we can when one of these trips is taking place in case they wish to send anything along.