The steps to fleet electrification
December 10, 2024
Whether you’re transitioning part of your fleet to electric vehicles or getting ready for complete fleet electrification, the first thing you’ll need to do is create a plan to meet the specific needs of your fleet.
Why develop an EV fleet transition strategy?
Planning ahead ensures you address all the necessary details and don’t run into unexpected expenses. It’s important to consider your industry, fleet size, geographic location, vehicle use, and charging needs. Other factors to account for during the planning stages are upfront costs, financing, data collection and EV driver training.
Whether you need end-to-end electrification, or office, depot, public or home charging solutions, a customized approach ensures a smooth transition and maximizes the benefits of going electric.
The steps to fleet electrification
- Create your electric vehicle transition roadmap
Your roadmap should include:- Driver and operational needs:
- Assess your fleet's needs by examining the types of vehicles needed.
- Consider distance, range, routes, acceptable vehicle downtime and load or towing capacity to craft your EV utilization strategy.
- Engage internal stakeholders to manage expectations and ensure smooth change management.
- Use targeted driver surveys to find the relevant driver population for EV adoption.
- OEM incentives and government programs to offset costs.
- The best EV charging infrastructure for your needs:
- Office or depot charging
- Home charging
- Public charging
- EV fleet management software: Integrate your vehicles’ telematics with data gathered from chargers to support combined reporting and advanced fleet analytics.
- Cost management strategies and financing for EV fleets: Plan for upfront investments, driver reimbursement, and manage energy consumption to reduce costs. You can even explore whether leasing or owning your vehicles is more cost-effective.
- Emissions and greenhouse gas reduction targets: Create clear targets based on data from reliable sources and your organization’s overall sustainability goals.
- EV driver training: Create a program to ensure fleet drivers are aware of the inherent differences of operating an EV.
- Driver and operational needs:
- Run your EV test deployment to create an essential playbook for large-scale success.
- Collect data, analyze fleet learnings and feedback from your EV trials.
- Evaluate your test results and review data and feedback. Some key factors to look for are where, when and how did your drivers chose to charge? How many managed their charge method and cost effectively?
- Adjust plans based on feedback and data.
- Collect data, analyze fleet learnings and feedback from your EV trials.
- Prepare to scale your EV fleet
- Plan infrastructure needs for larger deployment.
- Ensure financing and resources are in place for scaling.
- Finalize training programs and software deployment.
What are the key benefits of switching your fleet to electric vehicles?
There are many reasons to transition your fleet to EVs or hybrids. Electrifying your fleet not only aligns with environmental goals, but also offers substantial operational advantages. Switching to EVs can lead to cost savings over time, thanks to lower maintenance and fuel expenses. Electric fleets also contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions, which can enhance your company's reputation and commitment to sustainability.
Economic benefits of an EV fleet
When adding vehicles to your fleet, you always factor in the total cost of ownership (TCO). Even though EVs may have higher upfront costs, they can lead to long-term savings.
Fuel cost savings
- Fuel costs are a major expense for fleets and electricity is a fraction of the price. It is far cheaper to recharge an EV than to refuel a conventional gas or diesel fleet.
- By transitioning even a small segment of fleet vehicles to EVs, you can significantly save on fuel expenses. These savings can then be redirected to offset the initial costs of buying new EVs and building charging infrastructure.
- Electricity is a regulated market with more stability when compared to the fuel market, which is heavily influenced by speculation. You’ll be able to better forecast budgets to operate EVs.
Lowered fleet maintenance costs
- With fewer moving parts and less gritty buildup, over a vehicle’s lifetime EVs typically have lower maintenance costs.
- As electric vehicle production grows and battery technology improves, prices are expected to match those of gas-powered cars.
Government and industry incentives
- Tap into the government initiatives that continue to influence EV adoption.
- Regulations, policies, tax credits, and subsidies have been put in place to promote EV deployment.
EVs and hybrids are better for sustainability
Switching your fleet to EVs or hybrid vehicles will help you reach your sustainability goals.
- Electric vehicles do not produce tailpipe emissions. Any environmental impact from using power grid energy to charge EV fleets has a smaller carbon footprint over the lifecycle of the EV.
- Compared to average gasoline cars, EV batteries produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions. This holds true even accounting for manufacturing, as electric vehicles beat gas cars on climate emissions over time.
- Electric fleet vehicles are more efficient than ICE fleets because they can bring energy from the battery directly to the wheels and recover energy from braking. Conventional ICE vehicles require a set of many parts to deliver energy from the engine to the wheel, losing energy in the transmission process.
- Get an in-depth look at how close we are to electric vehicle cost parity.
Safety advantages
- EV safety standards: EVs meet the same safety testing and standards as internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, plus additional EV-specific certifications.
- Less rollovers: Due to the battery placement, the low and evenly distributed battery weight in EVs reduce the risk of rollovers, enhancing safety.
Improved accountability from drivers
- Data-connected solutions will show driving habits such as speeding, harsh turning or braking, the length of time spent out at the delivery location, etc. You can review these results and give fleet drivers direct feedback to improve driver behavior and reduce accident rates.
More responsive route optimization
- In addition to planning the most efficient routes, the technology factors in the closest charging stations based on range and planned stops. This improves driving times and saves on costs.
Overcoming challenges of transitioning your fleet to EVs
While EVs initially cost more to purchase than gas-powered vehicles, you can shift budgeting and transition some vehicles to start a test deployment. The same is true for the added investment associated with installing the charging infrastructure.
Understanding the shrinking barriers to EV adoption will help you evaluate the ways you can begin an EV test deployment to start small and grow with your needs. There are a range of strategies to help reduce your fleet's carbon emissions. You can overcome electric vehicle range anxiety by putting simple strategies into place.
No matter where you are in your EV journey, by following our recommendations, you can begin a successful EV fleet transition. We can help guide you to make the complex simple, sharing our expertise to give you confidence.
Ready to find out more? Download “The path to electrification” tip sheet or get in touch with us today.
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