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.

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.”

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?

Lorna McAtear, National Grid: Whether it’s holistic or trials depends on when you started the journey. If you started 10 years ago then it was trial here and trial there to feel your way around. When I joined National Grid, I’d already done those trials, so it was time to introduce a proper net zero strategy and get buy-in from the top. Low benefit-in-kind (BIK) rates got buy-in from drivers.

Duncan Webb, ISS: I don’t think any fleet manager needs to run electric car trials now, because there’s enough learning available from their peers. We know it works. It’s different for vans.

David Armstrong, Euro Car Parts: We’re starting from scratch as we have no EVs. We’re trying to understand the profile of our vehicles and the mileage they do on each site. We’re launching trials at four sites.

Brian Harwood, Avon Fire & Rescue Service: Everyone’s operational model is going to be different. In my case, I have to balance the risk of electric cars against their ICE equivalents. For us, it was all about data. We had a lot of ‘what ifs’ from drivers, but the data showed most of the time you won’t need to travel 150 miles, so it’s not a concern.

Norman Harding, London Borough of Hackney: You learn by mistakes. We found during one of our early trials that one of our depots didn’t have enough energy to charge EVs. We’re now trailling an electric heavy truck and there’s no way I’ll invest in those vehicles until I’ve done site surveys to establish the power coming into that site.

FN: What actions are you taking to future-proof workplace charging?

Steve Kirkby, Morgan Sindall: The issue for us is mobile sites. We work by the roadside in some remote places with no mains power, so we’re looking for solutions, first for cars and then vans.

BH: Our commercial vehicles can be stood down for between 12 and 14 hours a day, so they can be charged via a three-pin plug. You’ve got to look at the whole picture and ask, ‘what do you want that vehicle to achieve?’. For commercial vehicles that go back to base, you should be able to work out exactly what you need. It’s very fleet-specific. For example, Royal Mail knows the journey its vehicles cover every day.

Neil Thomas, Royal Mail: On average we charge every three days. Most of our vehicles take a driver to a delivery route and they then walk.

James Rooney: Pick your battles with the technology available. We have pick-up trucks weighing three tonnes that tow a 3.5-tonne trailer up muddy reservoir tracks so there’s no point worrying about those for a few years.

Shaun Sadlier, Arval: Many of our conversations with customers are around what their cars and vans do, and most don’t know so they need to be much more accurate and start recording their daily profile. Then we can help them identify which vehicles are suitable for transition and we can then go through wholelife cost analysis. Another area companies want answering is how they recompense drivers for charging.

NH: I installed my workplace charging network about five years ago and it’s pretty much obsolete already.

We bought the infrastructure based on what information was available at the time, but I didn’t realise how fragile the software would be. Even cabling becomes obsolete because it doesn’t meet new standards. Because of that and because I haven’t had great levels of customer satisfaction, I will never buy a charging network again. I’ll buy power as a service, which wasn’t available at the time, and if it’s not working, I won’t pay. Owning your own network also means you have tremendous health and safety responsibilities.

LMcA: The role of the fleet manager has changed, you’ve now got to work with many other stakeholders in the business, for example the property team who decide whether we buy or lease buildings, when looking at charging infrastructure.

FN: Where are the wholelife cost wins to be found?

JR: With EVs, there are no clutches or exhaust systems etc. and we’ve found that the only things that needed replacing on our eight-year-old EVs have been the wheel bearings. The saving on maintenance can be huge. Maintenance is as important, if not more important, than fuel, especially with electricity being expensive.

LMcA: If you can guarantee that vehicles aren’t breaking down then you don’t need spare vehicles for utilisation. I have found that downtime is longer for an EV if it’s been damaged, from a combination of garage nervousness working on an EV to parts supply issues. Whether that’s because it’s an EV or because of the parts supply, I don’t know.

SO: Maintenance and fuel are our two biggest savings when we look at wholelife costs.

FN: Anything you’re wrestling with that someone might have the answer for? What about vehicle supply?

NH: I’ve had four EVs on order since last March. We’re hanging on to everything at the moment.

James Taylor, Stellantis: The lead times on medium vans are a little longer than on other variants because a lot of people upsized from small vans and downsized from large vans as they were the best solution. For large and small vans, the lead time is about three-to-six months. There are still massive semiconductor issues. We’ve seen huge increases in residual values and I think that will continue.

LMcA: For many manufacturers this could accelerate their plans for electric vehicles. It could mean they concentrate on making those rather than ICE vehicles.

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