NACFE – Run on Less – PepsiCo/Frito-Lay’s EV Fleet

I love every chance I get to shoot for James Brown Media because the projects are always centered on big environmental initiatives and our energy transition.

The NACFE Run on Less program is a powerful non-profit initiative supporting decarbonization and efficiency in the trucking and freight sector.

I’ve shot a few events for NACFE’s Run on Less program, including one of the kickoff videos back in 2017 with Richard Branson, and it was great to be called on to handle production for one of their video segments on Frito-Lay’s brand new electric truck fleet in Queens, New York.

The challenge was to deliver footage that fit in stylistically with the larger Run on Less video series – featuring the latest electric truck depots around the country – but at a much older, short duty-cycle facility in industrial Queens, with active construction happening on the site.

We knocked out 12 interviews in two days under the summer sun with the various players and stakeholders that make this kind of project possible:  Frito-Lay and PepsiCo executives, fleet managers, drivers, infrastructure and OEM executives, and reps from New York City utilities and NGOs.  We also tracked and interviewed two Frito-Lay drivers during their delivery routes, in the cab, and with our drone operator.

–

Many of us have a general sense of the benefits of vehicle electrification in the environmental context:  improved energy efficiency, reduced greenhouse gases, and improved air quality in our neighborhoods.  But what the PepsiCo/Frito Lay decision to transition to an EV fleet in NYC shows – beyond the inspiration of seeing how many teams across the private and public sectors are coming together to tackle technological and logistical challenges and make projects like this happen – is that these decarbonization and efficiency initiatives are actually being driven forward not by politics, but by economic interests and improved quality of life, for nearly every stakeholder involved.

Video Edit by NACFE/James Brown