Opinion: Net zero fleets powering up to reach sustainability targets

By Emma Loveday, senior fleet consultant at Volkswagen Financial Services Fleet

Understanding the impact of electrification for your fleet

Consider individual driver and vehicle profiles: Even in fleets with uniform operational vehicles, driving patterns and journey types can vary significantly between drivers.

Gathering data to understand these unique driving profiles can help to paint a clearer picture of how easy or challenging it would be to transition a particular driver or vehicle to electric. This can highlight where the ‘quick wins’ are for your fleet’s electrification strategy.

Recognise the true cost of electrification: Understanding the true cost of fleet electrification requires fleet operators to look beyond monthly lease values, adopting a longer-term view and considering whole life cost (WLC).

When thinking of vehicle cost in this way, the justification for EVs becomes clearer.

Class 1A National Insurance Contributions are significantly reduced, charging vs fuel expenses can be cheaper, and the necessary servicing and maintenance associated with EVs can also be lower.

In addition, servicing and maintenance needs don’t tend to increase significantly after four years or 80,000 miles in the same way they do for ICE vehicles, particularly for commercial vehicles.

This means that fleet operators can confidently consider extending lease cycles to lower monthly costs, without experiencing excess maintenance costs.

Understand the impact of location and power source: When designing their EV transition strategy, fleet operators should also consider the areas fleets are operating in and their source of power.

Areas with higher renewable energy usage can see EVs saving up to 70% on CO2 emissions versus ICE vehicles (compared with the average savings of 50%).

Considering how you can improve access to clean and renewable energy sources for EV charging can help to strengthen transition and sustainability strategies. This may include measures such as installing solar panels to workplace chargers.

When switching to EVs, fleet operators need to develop an effective transition strategy. This should be informed by individual driver and vehicle operating profiles, WLC and sustainable considerations around charging methods. It should follow a clear roadmap of fleet assessments, pilots, reviews and rollouts.

Other sustainability gains

Although EV transition is incredibly effective in supporting fleet decarbonisation, it isn’t necessarily an easy option for every fleet.

For example, fleets with commercial vehicles may find it more challenging to transition – and, in these situations, there are other solutions to improve fleet sustainability and support decarbonisation.

These include:

Ensuring regular servicing – to ensure the vehicle’s engine continues to run smoothly, reducing its emissions

Consider viability of alternative fuels – such as Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) which is a Bio fuel that can be used in some internal combustion engine vehicles and can reduce carbon emissions by up to 90%

• Checking tyre pressures – to support a vehicle’s fuel efficiency, reducing its overall carbon footprint and tail-pipe emissions
• Planning journeys – to optimise routes, reducing vehicle mileage, fuel consumption and ultimately emissions
• Educating drivers to avoid idling – to limit one of the top contributors to air pollution and increased vehicle emissions
• Improving driver habits and behaviours – educating drivers to prevent harsh braking and acceleration, ensure they’re not rushing through gears and to get their buy-in for driving more economically.

The transition to EVs is inevitable, but businesses looking at a longer transition can still cut down emissions here and now. There are a number of other considerations that can also support fleets’ journeys to net zero.