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Rai Carlassare – a man for all seasons
Natali and Rai Carlassare
Rai Carlassare
– a man for all seasons
Without any shadow of a doubt, Rai Carlassare is a man for all seasons when it comes to being aware of preserving our environment for the future. His motives are family-oriented, but the scope of his determination goes much further. “I’ve got three daughters and I want to make sure they have a stable future, economically and environmentally. It’s important,” Rai explains. “They recently found microplastics on top of Mount Everest and our climate is definitely not doing well. You get to a point where you know what goes on is not right. I have three daughters from nine to 20 years old; they don’t have the financial capacity to deal with this just yet but they’re the ones who will suffer the most. We can’t bury our heads in the sand anymore.” Rai owns two companies, Pacific Hire and Active Environmental Services, and he is moving both towards more sustainable business practices. “Active Environmental services performs water treatment on commercial projects,” he said. “Where traditionally people would pump water off their job site down a storm water drain, we now have systems that clean it up to the point where it’s virtually drinking water when it goes down the storm drain. That’s a nice addition that points in the whole environmental direction that we’re trying to achieve. “Some of our access equipment lines in Pacific Hire are going to full hybrid/electric units. They retain all their traditional capabilities (4WD etc.) but they’re a full hybrid machine where they go literally eight hours on a battery pack. They also have a diesel engine/generator onboard in case the batteries deplete to the point where they need to recharge – but if you plug them in once every couple of days, they don’t ever run the diesel engine. It is a true balance of functionality and environmental consciousness. “We really try to push it where possible, investing a lot of money in Pacific Hire to try to be as environmentally conscious as we can. Not because we’re told to but because we need to. The environmental return on investment is the longer-term future. That’s the best way I can put it.” Rai’s green credentials go further than work. His home is also under scrutiny and he has invested a great deal in a sophisticated solar system with around 11kW of solar panels on the roof and a BYD B-BOX system, a commercial lithium battery system that offers 30kW of battery storage. It is managed through a ‘very intelligent’ Selectronic inverter system that tells the panels how much to charge the batteries at any given time, keeping both the batteries and the whole system in check. The Selectronic inverter is Australian made here in Victoria.
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“For nine months of the year we don’t get any electricity bills. It’s only through Winter for two or three months we split 50/50 battery and the grid as we don’t get enough sun through the winter months,” Rai says. “The beauty of it is that we get to plug in the E-Hybrid any time of the day and the battery system that runs the whole house also runs the car. CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E company. Currently he owns a Porsche Macan S, a Porsche 991.2 GT3 RS that he loves, and the Cayenne E Hybrid, and has recently ordered a 992 GT3 Touring. He also says he will buy a Taycan Turbo S in the next two or three years. CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E
“I did a bit of a rough calculation and we’ve reduced our carbon footprint as a household easily by 60 percent, which is a substantial amount.”
The E Hybrid that Rai is referring to is Natali and Rai’s current Porsche Cayenne E Hybrid. Initially Rai purchased a second-hand Porsche Cayenne Hybrid in 2012 and ran it for five years, and was so impressed by the technology that he bought a new one. CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E
“The technology was there, and you could see that Porsche was miles ahead of anyone at that stage. Because we liked it so much, my wife (Natali) said get another new one,” Rai says. “So, when the new 9YA series came out, I said: “What a great opportunity; we ordered a new one in about May 2018. And we were probably one of the first in the country to get one when we received it in January 2019.” Rai has not only been impressed by Porsche cars but also with the “Porsche commits to being as proactive as they can in the field of hybrid/ electric technology – they don’t do things by half,” he says. “They are either all in or not in at all. You really have to commend them as a manufacturer, from their manufacturing plants aiming for a zero footprint through to their products. You want to reward that sort of stuff. You’ve got to admire the investment and the will they’ve put in to achieve that.” CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E
All of Rai’s Porsches have been from Porsche Centre of Brighton from his first second-hand Cayenne Hybrid to the latest 992 GT3. He says that’s because he is so very pleased with how he is looked after there.
“When we bought the first Cayenne; I really didn’t know where to go,” he said. “The first person I was introduced to there was Jake Parsons. He was in service back then, now he’s in a sales role and he is absolutely brilliant. And it’s not just Jake, really the whole group is awesome. I would never want to go anywhere else.”•
