Lower maintenance costs help strengthen the case for EV adoption

Fleets adopting electric vehicles (EVs) can expect to achieve huge savings in maintenance costs when compared with their ICE (internal combustion engine) counter­parts, delegates at a Fleet News roundtable were told.

British Gas fleet engineer James Rooney (pictured) said, in his experience, electric commercial vehicles rarely break down and, when they do, it’s usually a relatively simple fix.

Rooney said at the British Gas-sponsored roundtable held in the village of Meriden near Coventry: 

“We save mostly on maintenance costs and vehicle downtime, because they really don’t break down.”

Other areas covered at the roundtable, which included fleet managers from organisations such as National Grid, Royal Mail and London Borough of Hackney, included EV strategies, workplace charging infrastructure and the impact of the global semiconductor supply issue on vehicle lead times.

Fleet News: Do you have a holistic EV strategy or is it a case of try them and see. And how do you get buy-in?

Steve Openshaw, Eric Wright Group: I’ve been driving an EV for nine years and I could see it was the future. I got our directors into electric cars to try them and now they’ve all either got one or have one on order.