Fleets cutting average annual EV home charging costs to down to £400

Fleets have been able to get the average cost of charging an electric vehicle down to £400 using smart scheduling, according to new data.

New fleet data from CrowdCharge, which took figures from its fleet customers, highlights how important its is to use dedicated electric vehicle home energy tariffs that operate with smart scheduling to charge vehicles at the lowest price.

Figures from the company’s home-based vehicle to grid customers have shown that drivers can charge their EVs for just £250 per year – and sometimes for free when combined with home renewables such as solar – by charging at times when electricity costs are low and selling electricity back to the grid when costs are high. 

CrowdCharge’s V2G customers have been using Nissan Leafs with CHAdeMO DC charging at homes, but a new V2G trial in workplaces – the V2VNY project – is using electric vehicles with CCS, which is now the standard technology on virtually all new EVs, using AC charging.

The project uses CrowdCharge software to choose when to import and export electricity based on cost and carbon.

V2G using AC charging isn’t widely commercially available at the moment, but will start to be rolled out by car manufacturers over the next year.

These latest figures showing annual cost savings of up to almost £1,000 for fuelling EVs using V2G compared to petrol vehicles are all the more relevant against the backdrop of the current debate about the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate and EV sales in the UK.

CrowdCharge data also shows that fleets can achieve CO2 savings of 63% in total – with reductions of up to 89% in some cases when using smart and V2G technology to determine when to charge

Mike Potter, CrowdCharge chief executive, said: “The current debate about the ZEV and electric car sales figures has resulted in a focus on what incentives should be offered to encourage people to buy EVs.

“EVs may be perceived to be more expensive than petrol cars based on their initial purchase price, but when you factor in the fuel price for EVs being either very low or potentially zero, the argument against EVs based on cost evaporates.”

The Innovate UK V2VNY vehicle to grid (V2G) project, which is trialling V2G using AC (alternating current), a more affordable solution than vehicle to grid charging using DC (direct current), features partners including CrowdCharge and DriveElectric.

CrowdCharge is a sister company to DriveElectric, an EV leasing broker specialising in supporting the transition to electric vehicles for organisations on their journey to net zero.