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FLEET MANAGEMENT E
very fleet manager knows that at some point they will need to transition to electric vehicles. By now, most businesses will have established a strategy for the overall transition of its vehicles.
The directive may well have come from a board- level ESG or CSR commitment. But, when it comes down to translating the strategy into action, it is up to the fleet managers working with facilities managers and, where there is one, energy managers to make it happen. If you think of a typical transition project, they
tend to start with your current situation – ‘where are we now?’ – and have an objective – ‘where do we want to be?’ – and a strategy – ‘what are the big steps we need to take to get there?’ The trouble is that translating strategy into action calls for smaller steps, and taking the first one is hard. Taking the first step is less scary when you have the right business intelligence to make informed decisions.
FLEET PROFILING There is no magic button to push that turns all your fleet vehicles into EVs with the right level of charging infrastructure in place. It has to be carefully planned, designed and managed. Most businesses sensibly opt for a phased
approach that starts with profiling their fleet to understand which vehicles are the best candidates to be transitioned to EV. This calls for a profile of the fleet, which can be a challenge. Fleet managers might not necessarily know if their current ICE vehicles can be transitioned into an electric vehicle. Without the right intel to hand, any decision is going to be based on a gut feel. That is risky when there are corporate-level strategies at play that involve considerable sums of money.
DATA IS KING Robust business intelligence and decision- making calls for data, lots of it. That is something fleets generate in abundance. Data about mileage, routes, payloads, cost of fuel and servicing, maintenance intervals, even driving behaviour and weather patterns can all feed into fleet optimisation profiles. Telematics from individual vehicles reveals a
great deal about where, how and why a vehicle performs. Taking telematics data and analysing it by vehicle type provides a good picture of which vehicles in a fleet can be electrified first. It can also help build a case for understanding which part of a fleet might not be a good candidate for electrification. We recently did some work for a customer which showed that 99 per cent of its fleet could be electrified but one route made it impossible for the final one per cent. In those instances you look for on route public charging or diverting the vehicle to another depot or charging partner.
SITE SPECIFICS COUNT Understanding how the vehicles work is one part of the equation, there are several other factors that come together to build the optimal EV transition
OPTIMISING EV FLEETS:
ELECTRIFYING THE RIGHT VEHICLES AT THE RIGHT TIME
Finding the best way to electrify their fleet can be a major headache for fleet managers. Natasha Fry, Mer UK’s head of sales for fleet and workplace explains why fleet profiling is a crucial step, and how it provides the strong foundation that takes EV fleets from a strategy to a reality.
34 SEPTEMBER 2024 | FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS
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