12 mins read
Businesses and fleet managers are keenly aware that time is money. As such, down-time spent refuelling and potentially charging vehicles is time that goods and services are not being provided to customers, and revenue is not being earned. However, vehicle stops are simply a fact of daily life for everyone no matter the fuel type. So, what are the practical and financial impacts on your operations if you switch to electric vehicles that, on paper at least, can travel less distance on a full “tank” – and take longer to refuel – than equivalent petrol or diesel vehicles?
If your fleet contains cars, the short answer is that many fleet managers have already switched theirs to EVs already, and when we drill down into the stats behind modern EVs, it’s not hard to see why. Out of the over 300 different makes and models of EV available to buy in the UK and Ireland today, three quarters of them have a real-world range of over 320km per charge. Notice that I said “real-world” range – this is not the overly optimistic WLTP range that manufacturers are obliged to state, but a much more realistic and reliable estimate provided by the excellent ev-database.org. Furthermore, sixty-five EV models are currently available to buy that have a real-world range of over 480km per charge, while the Mercedes EQS 450+ can drive from Mizen Head to Malin Head with charge to spare.
Electric Vans
What about vans, I hear you ask? Some drivers have given electric vans some bad press for allegedly having a poor range per charge, but these are almost invariably extreme scenarios where the van practically lives on the motorway and usually carries a lot of heavy cargo. Since a van’s maximum payload is much greater than the weight of occupants and luggage in a typical passenger car, this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise; it affects the range of diesel vans, too. However, the range of electric van makes and models available to buy today, and their range per charge, have both rapidly improved. If your vans typically do local runs within an 80 to 100km radius of your depot, then electric vans are already a no-brainer. Furthermore, if your vans do regular short journeys that tend to take their toll on diesel particulate filters, then switching to EVs will significantly improve the reliability and uptime of your fleet, since they take such duty cycles in their stride.
If some of your vans literally go the length and breadth of the country, fully laden, on motorways, on a regular basis, and are driven by drivers with a heavy foot, then take the van’s stated WLTP range per charge and half it to give you an extreme worst-case scenario range estimate (noting that this would be far too pessimistic to assess the real-world range that would be achieved for vans on urban stop-start routes described above).
For example, that means that a fully laden Opel Vivaro-e being driven on the motorway by a driver that isn’t hanging around, should do at least 165 km per charge. Similarly, AA Ireland reckons that the Ford Transit-e should return at least 200 km per charge if driven on the motorway in winter. For context, the CSO notes that the average distance driven by goods vehicles in Ireland in 2021 was 23,059 km (which is slightly higher than pre-COVID years). This translates to an average daily distance of 92 km if the vehicle is driven five days per week, 50 weeks per year.
Of course, if your cargo is more bulky than heavy, so you rarely max out the payload of your vehicles, then you should achieve considerably more range than the estimates provided above. Even if your fleet travels considerable distances each day, there are many high-mileage electric van fleets in operation already: if you need reassurance, look to the plethora of electric vans – and their happy drivers – that are operated in the UK and Ireland by An Post, British Gas, Royal Mail, DPD, and National Grid amongst others.
EV Technology & Infrastructure Improvements
As for charging those vehicles, the maximum charging power of modern EVs is increasing. Only a few short years ago, most EVs and fast chargers maxed out at 50 kW, which was enough to fast charge a 130 km-per-charge mid-2010s Nissan LEAF in about half an hour, but would take over three times as long to charge a modern Nissan Ariya. Thankfully, 192 of the EV makes and models available today can fast charge at over 100 kW; 79 can charge at over 150 kW, and 47 support a maximum charge power of over 200 kW, including such motorway mileage eaters as the Hyundai IONIQ 5 and 6 (and their Kia and Genesis siblings), the Audi A6 e-tron, and Porsche’s electric offerings.
Simultaneously, Ireland’s fast charging network is expanding, and getting faster. Numerous networks including Tesla, IONITY, EasyGo, Weev and Applegreen have opened high power sites in Ireland in recent months, and Ireland’s original ESB network has also been busy upgrading the power and quantity of fast chargers at its sites. 150 kW high power chargers can be found as far north as Buncrana, and as far south as Schull.
The SEAI notes that there are over 2,500 public charge points across Ireland, ranging from 7 kW AC (slow) to 200+ kW DC (fast). Check out Zap-Map to see where DC (fast) and AC (slow) charge points are along your usual routes. Fleet cards and roaming cards are available from a range of providers to use public charging infrastructure – much like fuel cards – so billing is easy.
That said, charging often begins at home. According to Zap-Map, UK EV drivers who have home charge points conduct 85% of their EV charging at home. Some home charge points even offer the ability to export charging session data so that you can easily reimburse your drivers who charge fleet vehicles at their home, which is particularly handy for businesses that don’t have depots.
If you have a depot, then installing charging infrastructure there will ensure that your vehicles are fully charged ahead of their next shift, while also allowing you to avail of any onsite renewables and off-peak electricity tariffs that you have in place, thus potentially saving you a fortune on fuel. If you don’t operate from a depot, it is possible to obtain portable chargers that plug into industrial 3-phase power sockets, which can be rapidly deployed and taken with you if you move. This includes battery-backed chargers that can sip electricity while your fleet is out on duty and dump it into your vehicles quickly when required. The latter are particularly useful for large fleets (and/or large and thirsty EVs like HGVs) to avoid the cost of grid upgrades if these would be too expensive at your location, or to provide temporary, much-needed chargers if a grid upgrade for your premises to provide permanent infrastructure has a long lead-time.
Another charging option for fleets is to share their infrastructure with other electric fleets. For example, First Bus, which operates a large fleet of electric city buses in Glasgow, Scotland, allows Ember’s intercity electric buses to charge at their Glasgow depot too, and also provides access to chargers at some of its other depots for Ember’s new buses when they are shipped to Portsmouth and driven up to Scotland, thus providing top-ups along the vehicles’ delivery route. Evata and Guided Energy are two platforms that specialise in linking fleets that need charging infrastructure near to their base or at specific parts of their routes with depots that have charging infrastructure that they are willing to share.
In summary
I will leave you with two important questions for businesses and fleet managers to ask themselves about EVs:
- How much range do you really need? The average UK round-trip commute is 42 km, which is longer than the average Irish commute according to the CSO. This means that 75% of EV models for sale today in Ireland could do comfortably over a week’s worth of commuting without needing to be plugged in. As for longer journeys, do you really do them without stopping at a service station? I once drove 530 km without stopping and then couldn’t feel my legs. Most drivers reach their natural stopping point – or when mother nature calls – before a modern EV needs to charge.
- How fast do you really need to charge? Some EV sceptics claim that they would want an EV to be able to charge in under five minutes before making the switch. However, “opportunity charging” saves time vs. refilling with petrol or diesel. Many EVs today can be fast-charged within the average dwell time at a motorway service station, during which the driver is grabbing a restroom break, and a bite to eat anyway. Paradoxically, the slowest form of charging – AC charge points at your home, depot or destination – is actually the fastest: turn up, plug in, and go do what you were going to do anyway (sleep/work/shop/visit clients etc.) and come back to a car that is likely fully-charged, or has at least taken on some useful range while it was stationary. Opportunity and destination charging take mere seconds of your drivers’ time to get going, and maximise the efficiency of your fleet operations by removing the need for added downtime purely to recharge the vehicle; done well, this means that EVs can take even less of your employee’s time to charge than petrol and diesel vehicles take to be refuelled.
After answering those two questions, many businesses and fleet managers quickly realise that EVs are far more suitable – and beneficial – for their company and fleet than they had previously thought. Even if some of your fleet proves to be more challenging to electrify today, National Grid’s Head of Fleet Lorna McAtear says don’t worry about it: just electrify the vehicles that you can, and switch the rest to electric when the range and charging times of the latest models allows. Lorna’s mantra is “Right vehicle, right job, right fuel-type, right time.” Lorna should know: she’s electrified about a third of her fleet so far, which translates to over 3,000 EVs and counting, and has just been crowned GreenFleet’s Most Influential decisionmaker in decarbonising fleet and transport for the second year in a row.