November 19, 2024
Planning for Long-Term EV Fleet Management
6 Min. Read
When it comes to long-term EV fleet management, developing an effective strategy is crucial during the initial transition to an electric fleet, but preparing for ongoing fleet management is just as important in the overall success and profitability of your business.
A successful electric vehicle (EV) fleet management plan allows you to anticipate and prepare for future fleet upgrades, understand and maintain the value of existing assets, and continuously improve fleet operations while also managing costs and protecting the bottom line.
In long-term management, EVs present several unique challenges and opportunities, especially when it comes to EV charging optimization or battery degradation.
Using data to form fact-supported insights into long-term EV fleet management will further help to enhance the value of your electric fleet and maximize the overall success of your business.
In this article, we explore opportunities for optimizing your fleet and steps to planning for a successful EV transition and long-term EV fleet management.
Optimizing Charging Infrastructure
Optimizing your fleet charging infrastructure has multiple benefits, including expanding your fleet’s range with more charging locations, reducing downtime through improved charging reliability, and even lowering charging costs.
Your first step to charging optimization for EV fleet management is to partner with a qualified electrician or electrical contractor skilled in EV charging station installation and maintenance to help evaluate your charging needs and determine a charging strategy that will support your drivers and your business.
This can range from helping you consider which level and type of EV charging stations will best match your fleet range needs, routes, and downtime for refueling, in addition to helping you determine where these charging stations should be installed. Hiring the same qualified electrician who can inspect your charging equipment and keep it in optimal condition in addition to installing it can help ensure that your EV chargers are safely and properly installed as the electrician will want to avoid unnecessary repairs or liability that can result from improper installation.
After ensuring your charging stations are safely and properly installed and routinely maintained, you’ll also need to periodically review whether your fleet requires more charging locations as your business continues to grow and scale. With the commercial EV market growing at a projected 23.8% CAGR, subscription-based charging solutions are on the rise. However, you can also expand your network by investing in at-home charging stations for drivers or deploying additional charging hubs across your territory if your business has multiple locations.
Smart charging solutions are another important aspect of long-term EV fleet management. Connected EV chargers can automatically regulate electric loads or rely on software to generate optimized charging schedules. Optimized charging strategies may include rotating driver’s charging schedules to avoid peak demand charges or taking advantage of EV charging programs from your utility provider to secure lower rates.
You should also consider updating your charging infrastructure with battery storage and solar panels. Combining independent battery storage powered by solar panels with a smart energy management solution means your charging infrastructure can draw power from batteries rather than the grid when time-of-use rates increase. Plus, you can repurpose old EV batteries by integrating them into your battery solution, essentially creating a self-sustaining microgrid that continues to expand over time.
Bidirectional charging is another optimization strategy that will become more commonplace in the future. Investing in a charging infrastructure that can support bidirectional charging allows you to earn energy credits by uploading unused electricity back to the grid or powering a battery system, a facility, or even another EV with an unused charge.
Monitoring and Managing Battery Health
Battery health and battery degradation, or the gradual loss of battery capacity over time, are major focuses for long-term EV fleet management. The average EV loses 1-2% of its capacity each year.
Battery Degradation
The best way to mitigate battery degradation is to invest in new EVs from reputable manufacturers.
While buying used EVs can mean lower upfront costs, the handling of the vehicles prior to your taking possession of them may have long-term impacts on the overall health of the vehicle and battery degradation over time. For example, how the vehicle was driven, how the EV battery was charged, and where the vehicle was stored when not in use can have long-lasting effects on the condition of the vehicle.
Extreme temperatures can affect the chemical reactions that happen inside EV batteries and quicken degradation, so vehicles stored outside in extreme weather may mean a greater reduction in battery capacity. While significant hot and cold temperatures can have a negative effect on EV batteries, scientists are actively working to reduce this impact through multiple strategies to make batteries more weather-resilient. As such, newer EV models will have greater resiliency and battery capacity.
Parking and charging your fleet EVs indoors can reduce exposure to extreme temperatures. For businesses in states with extreme climates, a hybrid fleet that can deploy gas-powered vehicles on extremely hot or cold days can also be a viable option worth considering.
Best Practices for EV Charging
Battery management systems (BMS) are built-in features of EV chargers that regulate charging and slow the rate of electricity transfer to protect the battery as the charge increases. A BMS will also prevent the battery’s charge from exceeding 80% of its capacity, and you can protect battery health further by ensuring battery levels don’t drop below 20%.
Keep in mind that frequent use of Level 3, or DC Fast Charging Stations (DCFC), may also result in increased battery degradation over time.
Investing in quality chargers with built-in BMS will conserve battery health, and as a result, these EV charging stations can not only enhance the efficiency and reliability of your electric fleet but also reduce long-term maintenance costs. You can further leverage analytics solutions to track battery performance and battery degradation and generate predictions to determine how degradation will affect charging frequency and costs over time.
Data-Driven Fleet Optimization
Data-driven fleet optimization opens new possibilities for fleet management. Data gives you more insights into utilization or performance, and you can leverage your findings to optimize operations.
EVs have more sensors than gas-powered vehicles, and external data sources are more readily available than ever. It’s now possible to integrate data from multiple channels to create an advanced fleet analytics solution using the enhanced telematics that EVs can provide.
Use cases include real-time tracking of vehicle and battery performance, monitoring driving behaviors, identifying habits that contribute to increased battery degradation, and leveraging insights into performance and range to optimize charging schedules.
Beyond telematics, many fleet managers are also investing in predictive analytics. This approach can help you spot slight drops in performance that may indicate a need for maintenance, reduce downtime for your fleet through better route and charging optimization, and achieve a lower cost-per-mile by being more proactive about planning and maintenance.
Finding a Long-Term Electrification Partner
Your long-term EV fleet management plan should include continuously optimizing your charging infrastructure, protecting battery health, and implementing data-driven optimization to enhance fleet operations.
Being proactive about fleet management will protect your investment in the long term and put you in a position to continue unlocking growth thanks to electrification. A key element of this plan for the future is to find the right electrification partner.
As the largest and most trusted electrification network in North America, our network of certified electricians has installed over 450,000 EV charging stations in homes and businesses across the U.S. and Canada.
We’ve earned our reputation as the most experienced and high-quality electrification service and EV charger installation network and can help make your transition easy with our experience and commitment to your business.
Find out how an electric vehicle fleet can help build your business for the future. With a simple and seamless installation experience and top-quality service you can trust, Qmerit makes driving electric easy no matter where your drivers need to charge.
Get started with Qmerit today to learn how we can support your fleet electrification project and help you enjoy the benefits of a seamless EV experience without the typical complexities of EV charger installation.
