Fleets are unbundling service maintenance and repair (SMR) for electric vehicles (EVs) from their lease contracts, believing savings are not being passed on.
Chair of the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP), Paul Hollick, says that SMR budgets for EVs is one of the top five issues for fleet operators.
“They’re scratching their heads and thinking how on earth can SMR budgets on EVs be so high,” Hollick told Fleet News at 10. “There are probably 50 moving parts on EV - there are over a thousand on an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle.”
He continued: “You’d expect to see a reduction between an ICE vehicle and an EV and, if anything, we're seeing the reverse.”
In an attempt to tackle the issue for its members, the AFP is in the process of speaking to a consultant to establish from an industry perspective what fleets should be expecting in terms of SMR budget for an EV in comparison to an ICE vehicle.
"We do feel as an industry that we are being overcharged and, because of that, I'm seeing a lot of members unbundling SMR on EVS now, which, if I'm honest, most of us don't really want to do, we want a one stop shop, we want an easy life as best we can and we want to keep a fixed maintenance pack in place if we can,” added Hollick.
With some of the manufacturers offering three-year free services with new EVs, unbundling SMR at this this time could make perfect sense, according to Lorna McAtear, fleet manager at National Grid.
She always unbundles and speaking to other fleets that have unbundled she says that they are able to make savings, but she added it was important to have the processes in place to be able to manage the fleet.
Duncan Webb, fleet director at the AA, suggests that pay-as-you-go SMR, rather than unbundling, or sharing the risk with your leasing company could be a better approach for fleets.
Meanwhile, Jim Gregory, strategic fleet manager at Defra Group fleet services, says that, while it has unbundled SMR for its commercial vehicles, it has not for its lease cars.
He told Fleet News at 10: “We’ve had a significant number of EVs on fleet for a number of years, five years-plus now, and so we have the data to back up our conversations with our lease car suppliers.”
Gregory explained that it was seeing a 20-30% saving on SMR spend, compared to ICE vehicles. “We are able to use data to leverage some cost down with the lease car supply, which helps," he said.
Head of fleet at Herd Group, Dave Fisher, says the company offers a full-service maintenance package to its customers as it’s the “easiest way to manage it”.
He continued: “If everyone moves to pay on use it that that can work nine times out of 10, but if you do get problem vehicle with a lot work that needs doing that isn't warrantied, it's going to be quite a large cost, especially when it comes to electric vehicles as a lot of them do have more expensive components you need to worry about.”
Do electric vehicles really cost less than ICE cars to maintain? Read more from Fleet News here.
The next Fleet News at 10 is on Friday (May 26), with the panel of fleet professionals discussing: possible new EV battery degradation laws; new DVSA guidelines on roadworthiness; graduated driving licence proposals; and Tesla dropping right-hand drive models.
To register for the next Fleet News at 10, click here.
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Gareth has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist having started his career in local newspapers in the 1990s. Prior to joining Fleet News in 2008, he worked in the public sector as a media advisor and is currently news editor at Fleet News.
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