Electric vehicle acceleration poses 'risk and cost issues' for fleets

Greater rates of acceleration for electric vehicles (EVs), compared to their internal combustion engine (ICE) counterparts, is creating potential fleet risk management and cost issues, FleetCheck is warning.

Emerging hot hatch EVs such as the 642bhp Hyundai Ioniq 5N and MG4 XPower can cover 0-60mph in around 3.5 seconds.

Peter Golding, managing director at FleetCheck, said: “Just a few years ago, performance of this type was limited to genuine sports cars and even supercars, and was certainly almost unknown on fleets, so these rapid EV hot hatches do represent something new for the sector to manage.”

He added: “It’s worth noting that EVs are generally faster in terms of acceleration than petrol cars on fleets, with even mainstream models such as the Tesla Model 3 in its most basic form covering 0-60mph in less than six seconds.

“To some extent, fleets have so far found this issue has been self-managing. If EV drivers have made use of the potential performance of their cars, they’ve found the range falling very rapidly, so have tended to be generally conservative behind the wheel.”

However, Golding says that, with the market now producing rapid EV hot hatches, providing a very high level of performance at relatively accessible prices, they raise a fundamental question of whether they should be added to fleet choice lists.

Vehicles with this kind of performance would not just present a very real risk if drivers attempted to access the available performance on a public road, but there would be cost issues arising from excessive tyre and brake wear, he argues.

“Of course, there have been privately-owned cars on public roads that go this fast for some years, but the numbers have been tiny,” he continued.

“The danger is that this represents a new class of attainable vehicle that could be appealing to some fleet drivers.

“However, there is a fundamental question to be asked about whether anyone driving on company business needs access to this kind of speed? Should they be added to company choice lists at all?”

From FleetCheck’s perspective, the answer would be no and Golding says it is difficult to envisage a serious and informed risk management conversation that concludes otherwise. However, he says this does seem like a conversation that the fleet sector needs to be having.

“Getting this wrong could result in tragedy for fleet drivers and other road users,” he added.