21/08/2026
Interesting news we came across: Tiger Brands has started moving part of its Albany bakery fleet onto alternative fuels.
Fourteen CNG trucks, one fuelling point at the bakery, and a five-year target to shift 10% of the fleet.
What makes this interesting is that they aren't betting everything on one technology. CNG, electric, hybrid and solar are being tested side by side, on real routes, with real mileage and real operating conditions.
That is probably the right way to approach a transition where nobody has all the answers yet.
Commercial fleets are where these technologies get properly tested. A CNG truck brings different requirements from an electric delivery vehicle. A hybrid introduces different charging behaviour, electrical loads and potential failure points again.
And that changes what happens downstream.
The fitment centre that once dealt predominantly with conventional lead-acid batteries is increasingly dealing with a much wider range of vehicle technologies and electrical systems.
Technicians need broader electrical knowledge. Diagnostics need to keep pace. For fitment centres, that means understanding a wider range of battery and electrical system requirements across the vehicles coming through the bay.
Tiger Brands has the scale and daily operating data to find out what actually works in commercial distribution.
What comes out of trials like these will influence the vehicles, systems and technologies that eventually reach the wider aftermarket.
At BatteryCorp, tracking these shifts is part of understanding where the fitment industry is heading.