Challenges presented by fleets transitioning to EV aired at Fleet200 Strategy Network meeting

What are your plans and views on the role out of charging infrastructure nationally and at your workplace?

Members of the Fleet200 Strategy Network meeting in Sheffield discussed the challenges their facing and the wider issues surrounding electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Here are key points made.

• We’ve got a lot of legacy charges from 15 years ago and they either don’t work or don’t get any maintenance. But we’ve 50 electric vehicles and the number is growing and as such we’re looking at more dedicated charge points and we’re out to tender now for 20kW chargers. We did look at home charging, but the management and control of it made it too much hassle. Most of my fleet is car derived vans and drivers travel within a 30-mile radius of base so we’re looking at depot charging.
• The likes of BP and Shell are investing huge sums of money into motorway charging, but the costs are so high. Once the Government adds tax to electric charging costs, are we going to see a lot of them unused as people choose to charge elsewhere? There needs to be regulation to limit how much we must pay to charge.
• Charging costs will always be more at high transit locations. But I would expect, with £950 million coming from the Government, increased competition will come to the market that could bring prices down.
• Range anxiety has been replaced with charging anxiety. If I’ve got a four-hour journey, does it have to become five hours because I’ve got to either find a charger that works or queue for one? The infrastructure has got to be put in faster and it’s got to be cheaper to charge.
• Make hay while the sun shines with the EVs you have now, because as the Government’s tax take on diesel and petrol falls they will have to make up the loss from EV drivers eventually. We should focus on making better what we have now. We’ve grown up with the simplicity of filling up on petrol and diesel – I’m not going to wait for more than an hour to charge up. We’ve never had to pay for the investment in petrol stations.
• We missed an opportunity 12-15 years ago to get OEMs to invest in charging facilities, instead leaving it to seed companies and local authorities. We’re now in a deplorable situation compared to European countries where they started the transition process after us, but made decisions faster.
• We need big picture thinking on infrastructure that everyone can get behind rather than the existing distraction of everyone having their own, smaller plans. The Government is looking for investment, but the plan is as important as the funding.
• Ask a fleet manager why they’re going electric and not one will say it’s for universal health reasons. It’s always because they’re being made to as it’s the biggest show in town. There is a lack of messaging from the country’s leadership that the direction we’re on now is going to be sustainable.
• The 2030 ban on ICE vehicles has got to be pushed back, or quietly buried. It is not going to be possible for sales of diesel and electric cars to stop at that point because we won’t be in a position to move to EV only.
• When he was PM Boris Johnson claimed inner city restaurants and bars were struggling because people weren’t travelling anymore. But what wasn’t mentioned was that EV drivers found the charging costs too high to go into cities, which had its own impact on businesses’ revenues.