Prepare
Learn from others
You do not need to start from scratch. Investigate and learn how early adopters have made the transition.
Many companies have made ambitious commitments to transition their fleet to 100% electric. This guide provides detailed case studies that can provide valuable insights to help you on your journey.
Specific examples for each of this guide’s relevant use cases are identified here:
- Used/Housed with the employee
- LeasePlan – Zero Emissions, Fully Electric by 2021
- Shared company car
- Engie, Cofely – Zero emission vehicles for technicians
- Last-mile delivery
- INGKA –100% electric or zero emissions home deliveries in Shanghai
There are also many success stories with the use of storage for the integration of EV charger and renewable energy such as the University of Lilly or a collaborative project with Engie and La Poste. You can view more detailed examples in the case study section of this website.
Consider partnership opportunities to deploy new business and ownership models that will make managing EV fleet easier and cheaper.
Vehicle grid integration
![](http://test.untangle.digital/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/grid-integration.png)
The charging of EVs can be used by electric power companies for a variety of services designed to make the grid operate more efficiently. By way of smart charging and/or discharging electricity back into the grid, EV charging can be managed to produce revenues. Many charging companies and electricity providers are exploring how best to tap this potential capability and need partner fleets to test solutions.
Second life batteries
![](http://test.untangle.digital/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/second-life-batteries.png)
Mobile servicing
![](http://test.untangle.digital/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Group-434.png)
EV leasing model
![](http://test.untangle.digital/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/v-leasing.png)
Map challenges
Work with internal stakeholders to overcome adoption and mindset hurdles
Many people are not yet familiar with EVs and may have misconceptions that need to be addressed. Several ways to achieve this are:
Engage vendors
Analyze the value-adds and trade-offs offered by different vendors
The EV market is young and maturing. Vendors are innovating constantly. As you analyze vendor options across the suite of required services there are opportunities for both cost savings and pitfalls.
Analyze the value-adds and trade-offs offered by different vendors
Network deployment
- Interoperability: avoid vendor lock-in and the potential for stranded assets, by working with vendors that use open standards.
- Mobile chargers/charging: bringing the chargers to the vehicle can offset investments of large stationary charging infrastructure networks.
In public, a mobile charging service can relieve employee range anxiety. - Energy storage: technologies to generate and store power can be used to avoid upgrades to facility infrastructure and speed charging
infrastructure installation. They can bypass the need for a DSO/DNO to increase capacity into your facility or at the substation. It can also
support the use of renewable energy. - Charging-as-a-Service (CaaS): upfront costs can be a problem. Some charging companies alleviate this pain point with “as-a-service”
business models that spread upfront costs over an ownership period.
Network management
- Networked chargers: ensure your technologies don’t fall behind by working with a charging management provider. These companies typically offer cloud-based software services that can connect your vehicles or chargers to ease transaction management, reduce energy costs and prevent maintenance issues among other services.
- Remote maintenance/Automated technician servicing: a feature of some charge management platforms, software algorithms will automatically address charging equipment faults or signal and schedule local technicians to ensure charger downtime is minimized.
Energy management
- Grid services: a common feature of management platforms to varying degrees, this can keep energy costs low by timing vehicle charging to coincide with low-cost electricity rates or grid balancing services. It can also be used to charge cars when renewable energy is being generated.
- Bi-directional chargers/charging: bidirectional charging enables EVs to push power back onto the grid creating revenue generating opportunities in some markets.
- Load balancing: this service uses vehicle and driver information to allocate electricity to the vehicles that need it most. It can be used to avoid additions to facility monthly demand charges and to increase the number of charging connections without increasing feed-in capacity.
- Renewable energy: this decreases the carbon emissions of electric drive and can be used to reduce CPO operating costs via the generation and sale of carbon emissions credits to voluntary carbon markets.
Selecting chargers provided for the home or workplace by a charging manufacturer
There are two common types of chargers: Level 2 (L2) AC chargers and DC fast chargers (DCFC).
When choosing your charging technology, interoperability is critical to avoiding stranded investments.
Select chargers that use open standards. This will ensure your solution applies to multiple vehicle types and that you have multiple vendors.
Open standards for charger connections by region are shown in the table below.
An additional open standard to look for is the open charge point protocol (OCPP). Vendor adoption of this standard will allow you to change equipment management platforms.
Selecting the best charging network manager and platform
Management platforms can be used to optimize the operation of your EV fleet.
Vendors of these platforms have varying capabilities which are described in the table below. These can save charging costs and potential administrative hassles.
Selecting vendors for public charging services
Depending on use case it may be wise to partner with a public charging network provider and provide your employees with a “charging card.”
This is applicable to all use cases, but it may not be possible for some last-mile delivery vehicles with large batteries that cannot use current public charging options.
If the option is available, prioritize launching fleet electrification programs where public charging services are in place.
Some considerations for selecting a charging network provider to partner will include:
- Geographic coverage
- Connector standards and charging speeds
- Pricing model (pay-as-you-go vs. subscription)
- Ease of payment (RFID, contactless, other)
Management platforms can be used to optimize the operation of your EV fleet. Vendors of these platforms have varying capabilities which are described in the table below.
These can save charging costs and potential administrative hassles.