Sharing is caring
For many businesses, the current new car supply shortage and hybrid working model has left them with a somewhat curious dilemma.
been able to do that. It would have cost them a lot of money and been a very complex process.”
According to Harper, fleets will be able to rely on vehicles not facing big queues to charge at Electric Forecourts due to the company’s policy of investing in facilities before they are required, something also seen in the installation of 350kW chargers, which exceed the maximum charging capability of vehicles currently on the market.
He said: “What we are doing is laying out a huge amount of capital on chargers, which no vehicles can use to their full capacity today and we are putting far more in so that people have the confidence to transition.
“We are investing well ahead of demand. If we find ourselves in a situation where
of chargers as a target. For us it’s not about numbers of chargers, it’s about the right number of chargers and the right power of those chargers to serve a location. “For example, we have 22 350kW chargers here, eight 250kW Tesla chargers and six AC chargers. We could instead have a few hundred 7kW chargers, but that would not be as useful as the chargers we have got, because we can charge a car in 20 or 30 minutes, whereas the same level of charging power for a 7kW charger is going to be there for many, many hours.
“Just putting chargers in the ground and saying ‘Hey, I’ve got X many thousand’ isn’t really what customers want. What customers want is the best charging experience and that isn’t about more chargers it’s about the right chargers.
“Putting chargers in the ground and saying ‘Hey, I’ve got X many thousand’ isn’t what [we] want. ”
there are massive queues, then there are opportunities to add additional charging bays to this site, but I don’t think we are anywhere near that and probably won’t be for a few years.”
On the subject of the wider public charging landscape in the UK, when asked about the UK Government’s recently announced target of 300,000 public chargers by 2030, Harper said that while Gridserve had a ‘very good’ relationship with the government, he was cautious about the number stated.
He said: “I have concerns about numbers
If you’ve got a home charger, 7kW is perfect, let’s go and put them in 300,000 homes – sounds like a very good idea, apart from the grid would struggle. But is that the right solution for public charging? It depends where.
“In a car park, probably, if the car is going to be there all night. If it’s going to be there three hours, probably not. Half an hour, definitely not. You need to work it out like that rather than get too obsessed with numbers, otherwise we might end up with 300,000 chargers that aren’t that useful.”
New vehicles are not available to replace company cars at the end of their lease or contract. But there’s a car park full of pool cars not being used by employees who are now working from home.
Putting pool cars to work could be the answer. However, for many businesses, they don’t have the technology and resources to manage pool car usage. Europcar does!
Tap and Go
Europcar’s innovative ‘Tap and Go’ technology can be installed into a company’s pool car, supported by an easy-to-use booking platform for a well-managed and clever way to keep employees mobile when they need to be – without relying on their own vehicles.
Using an all-devices app, drivers can book their own rental and access the vehicle in the car park with just a tap of their smartphone on the windscreen. And fleet and travel managers can monitor the use of their business fleet efficiently with monitoring and reporting, via the platform providing real-time updates on bookings, vehicle utilisation and even CO2 consumption.
Take just the tech – or the cars too
Europcar can supply the tech for a company’s existing pool car fleet. There’s no need to rent vehicles from us.
If you need cars too, our full corporate car sharing service includes vehicle maintenance and cleaning, safety checks, fuel card and roadside assistance.
No grey areas
On demand corporate car sharing not only means business mobility keeps moving; it helps reduce reliance on grey fleet – employees’ own vehicles – which tend to be older, less reliable, more polluting and are not usually fitted with the latest safety features. Knowing more about the vehicles employees are driving supports the duty of care obligations of every business.
There’s a sustainability benefit too. Research from CoMoUK, the shared transport charity, shows that a car share scheme can have significant benefits in reducing congestion and emissions. Each shared vehicle can take 18.5 vehicles off the road and typically shared vehicles are more environmentally friendly, emitting on average 26.5% lower carbon emissions compared with the average UK car. Businesses that create their own corporate car share scheme could be part of that ‘green’ story.
To find out more about Europcar Corporate Car Sharing visit
www.europcar.co.uk/business or call 0371 384 0140
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
