A small firm that measures things

Sprour is an independent fleet electrification advisory based in Halifax. Nine people, one method, no hardware to sell. We exist because the question “can this fleet electrify?” has a factual answer, and almost nobody was going out to the yard to find it.

Why we started

The first study was a favour that took four months

In 2016 a municipal fleet supervisor outside Halifax asked two engineers a straightforward question: could his light-duty fleet go electric? The honest answer was that nobody knew, because nobody had measured what those vehicles actually did all day. So they borrowed loggers, spent a winter finding out, and wrote it up.

The report ran to forty pages. Its central finding — that most of the fleet was ready and the depot was not — has turned out to be the finding in a large share of the studies we have run since. Sprour was incorporated the following spring to do that work properly.

Ten years on, the method has been revised four times and the fleet count is past two thousand vehicles. The principle has not moved: measure the yard you have before specifying the fleet you want.

Fig. 5 — Completed depot studies by region2016 – Q2 2026

Record

Ten years, briefly

2016
Two engineers log a 38-vehicle municipal fleet through a Nova Scotia winter, on borrowed equipment and their own time.
2017
Sprour Advisory Inc. incorporated in Halifax. First paid engagement: a regional water utility with 22 service trucks.
2019
The depot model is added to the method after a client orders vehicles their switchboard cannot feed. Method revision 2.0.
2020
First edition of the Cold-Weather Range Ledger published, with measured consumption for nine models.
2022
Winnipeg field office opens. First Prairie engagements; the method meets −38 °C and gets revised again.
2024
Two-thousandth vehicle logged. The firm publishes its first recommendation against electrification as a full field report.
2026
Method revision 4.2 issued. Sixty-one depots assessed; the reference desk is opened to the public without registration.

Position

What we are, and are not

An advisory, not an installer

We do not sell, supply, install or maintain vehicles, chargers or software. Our name never appears on a hardware invoice.

Engineers and analysts, not campaigners

We are not an advocacy organisation. If the numbers say wait, the report says wait, and it says why and for how long.

Deliberately small

Nine people, six or seven concurrent engagements. Growth beyond that would mean the person you meet at intake is not the person who does the work.

People

Who you will actually deal with

Four of the nine. The adviser named on your engagement is the one who visits the yard, builds the model and presents the findings.

Marielle Dufresne, P.Eng.

Principal · Power systems

Fifteen years in distribution planning at a provincial utility before co-founding Sprour, which is why our load letters tend to get answered quickly. Marielle leads every Groundwork engagement and owns the depot model. She works in English and French.

Owen Tetrault

Director · Fleet data

Built the logging stack and the duty-cycle pipeline. Owen spends more time in yards at shift change than anyone else here, on the principle that the data explains itself much faster when you have watched the work it came from.

Priya Raghunathan, CPA

Lead · Cost modelling

Responsible for every dollar figure that leaves the office. Priya rebuilt our TCO model in 2023 to carry explicit uncertainty ranges, and she is the reason our forecasts are presented as bands rather than single numbers.

Jonas Kirkegaard

Lead · Field operations

Runs logger installation, site surveys and pilot supervision across the Atlantic and Prairie regions. Jonas wrote the Yard Walk-Through Checklist after one too many site visits that missed the snow-clearance problem until February.

Independence policy

How we stay unconflicted

Every Sprour report carries a declaration page listing any relationship, however minor, between the firm and any organisation named in the study. In ten years that page has been blank on every engagement, and we intend to keep it that way.

No commissions, referral fees or reseller margin, from anyone.
No equity in vehicle, charger, software or installation businesses.
Staff may not accept vendor hospitality above a $75 threshold.
Clients may audit our declaration on request, at any time.

Standards and memberships

Where our work is checked

Engineering work is carried out under the supervision of a professional engineer licensed in the province of the engagement. Cost models are reviewed by a chartered professional accountant before issue.

Corporate member, Canadian Fleet Management Institute
Member, Atlantic Clean Transportation Network
Engineering practice permit held in NS, NB, PE, NL, ON, MB and SK
Field reports peer-reviewed by an external adviser before publication

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