How Siemens Turned Small SUVs Into Service Vehicles

Your service vehicle may be built around assumptions that stopped being true years ago.

At Siemens, Adam Orth and his team went into the field to see how technicians were actually using their vehicles—and found vans carrying more empty space than equipment, underused shelving, and jobs that no longer required the same setups they once did.

In this episode, Adam explains how Siemens rethought parts of its service fleet around the work itself, from moving some roles into SUVs to redesigning upfits around what technicians actually need. He also shares why fleet leaders should question one-for-one replacement, get closer to the field, and be willing to change the vehicle when the job has already changed.

Connect

Adam Orth on LinkedIn
Siemens U.S.
The Fleet on LinkedIn

Sponsor

This episode is sponsored by Element Fleet Management.

If your organization depends on a fleet of vehicles, it's time to think about your fleet as a strategic asset. Learn more at elementfleet.com.

Chapters

0:00 What Kind of Service Vehicle?
2:12 Why Siemens is one of GM's largest EV commercial customers
5:39 What Germany's EV sales numbers reveal about US infrastructure
7:59 The question that should come before 'which EV'
10:45 Throwing out the fleet playbook — and why it wasn't just about EV
14:12 'The scroll of excuses' Adam hears every day
16:28 The revelation: from vans to Equinox
21:31 One ladder nearly killed the whole plan
23:09 The upfit rebuild — killing cookie-cutter shelving
26:56 'Hauling air' — what the field study actually found
29:00 How Siemens thought about the SUV strategy across states
32:05 What field feedback surfaced about charging speed
37:34 Wind, hills, cold, towing — the range argument fact-checked
51:19 The four things that quietly stacked in EV's favor
53:19 Advice for fleets early in the EV transition

Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.