Automotive Business Magazine – Q3 2026 – Digital edition - Flipbook - Page 38
Interview
Engineius
Milly Standing speaks with Phill Jones, CEO at Engineius, about reducing
wasted journeys, and the physical operations around vehicle movement
A
s margins tighten across the
automotive industry, and
businesses look to balance
efficiency, sustainability and
productivity, one element
of the vehicle purchasing
process remains under
the radar. From dealership
restocks, customers getting
their car delivered, or fleet managers
redistributing their assets, vehicle
movement is a logistical challenge up
and down the country.
Engineius was established to tackle the
challenges of a traditionally inefficient
process in an age where downtime is the
enemy, and sustainability the goal. Phill
Jones, CEO as of March 2026, sat down
with Automotive Business Magazine to
discuss the future of vehicle movement.
Genesis and hypothesis
Jones was
as with MOTORS and Cazoo
for 16 years,
ears, learning not just about the
inside off the automotive industry, but
also
o about technology marketplaces and
their dynamics.
amics. This gave him a strong
foundation
dation on which to enter a new
business
ess that straddles both physical
logistics and sophisticated tech.
He says:
ays: “You need the cars, but you
also need
eed the eyeballs on them, you need
both to
o make them work together.”
Engineius
eius started 10 years ago, and
was formulated
rmulated by two founders, Chris
Clibbery
y and Mark Jannaway, who
identified that logistic vehicle movement
was inefficient.
fficient.
If a driver is taking a vehicle from point
A to
o point B, then comes back without a
vehicle,, that can cost companies more,
because
e they are paying for return travel.
Vehicle movement
ovement has traditionally been
very manual,
anual, but now, technology can
automate
ate and reduce the pain points,
supporting
ting both business and drivers.
Jones
es says: “If you can do two trips
rather than
an one with public transport, or
an empty
y journey, everyone can be better
off. The
e driver can make more money,
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Q1 2026
and the company behind it can make
more money.
“The more jobs we've got available for
drivers, the happier the drivers are. The
happier the drivers are, the better the job
they do. The better the job they do, the
happier the customers are, and the more
movements that come.”
Much like popular taxi apps, Engineius
drivers are independent and have the
autonomy to select the journeys they go
on to work around their lives. Customers
are typically fleets that are defleeting
or delivering vehicles, or dealerships
delivering to a customer.
Vehicle movement is not just about
the travel from A to B, though. There
are other factors and risks to be taken
into account. Jones says: “You get chips
in the windscreen, you know, there'll
be incidents on the road, there'll be
tricky jobs. Actually, this whole layer
of automation technology can come
in and help with that. And then
the contact centre adds
the personal touch when
it's needed.”
He adds: “In a
perfect world, we
don't have to speak
to the driver or the
customer and the
technology automates
it. That’s what I
really like about the
business, it's selflearning, and as it gets
bigger, you get more
bookings, which gives
more insights on what
essentially needs to
be fixed.”
Now that the
business
has
PHILL
JONES
