These days a lot is being made about the impending take over of the consumer car industry by electric vehicles. Recently Bloomberg New Energy Finance released an updated analysis stating that EVs will make up 54% of all new vehicle sales by 2040 and over a third of all vehicles on the road. Thats a lot of vehicles, but whats missing here is the impact EVs are having on vehicle fleets.

Fleet cars typically put a ton of miles on the road in a short time. They burn through fuel, wear down breaks, and put heavy strain on just about every moving part in the vehicle. Its because of this that electric vehicles make so much sense for fleets. They simply don't have that many moving parts, brakes last longer due to regenerative breaking, batteries can last well over 100,000 miles, and electricity costs are usually a third that of gas prices.

All of these things make electric vehicles ideal for fleet purposes and many companies are starting to look into what electric vehicle fleets require.

Charging Infrastructure is Key

The biggest issues any fleet needs to overcome is access to charging. Just like multi-family housing fleets require hundreds of charge stations in garages that simply were never designed to power those vehicles and adding in sufficient charging infrastructure is difficult and expensive. Many have assumed that a larger build out of public charging stations will meet this need but for fleets that doesn't actually work. Look at existing fleet vehicles and you'll notice many never appear at the local gas station. Do you ever see a bus waiting in line at the local gas station? Probably Not and the reason is pretty simple its cheaper and faster to have your own gas depot for refueling needs and its the same with EVs.

Do you ever see a bus waiting in line at the local gas station? Probably Not.

Utilizing public infrastructure sounds like a good plan initially but when you look at wait times and costs, it makes far more sense to build out your own system, but how to do it?

Fleet vehicles require an intelligent system that is capable of utilizing the buildings existing infrastructure to its maximum efficiency, that allows for the largest number of installs and avoiding the high costs of upgrading to the infrastructure. EverCharge's SmartPower technology has already solved this problem at a number of places, by adding hundreds of charging stations to garages that could only support a handful. All while avoiding seven-figure electric infrastructure upgrade costs. Systems like SmartPower make EV fleets possible.

All A Matter of Range

Some fleet vehicles travel 300+ miles everyday, and this unfortunately is a tall order for just about every EV on the market currently. In fact the only electric vehicle thats capable of this is the Tesla Model S P100D which typically retails for $130k, well above what a typical gas fleet vehicle runs (>$20k). This difference in costs whips out any real advantage the an EV has. While this sounds like a complete non-stater the typical fleet vehicle drives around ~120 miles per day, for that range a lot more vehicles are available for far better prices.

Lowest Cost Per Mile (Consumer Prices):

Nissan LEAF – $198 per electric mile of range

Tesla Model 3 Long Range – $158 per electric mile of range

Chevy Bolt – $153 per electric mile of range

Most of the new EVs that have been released in the past year all have longer ranges than 120 miles and every announced vehicle for next year looks to be over 200 miles. As range issues become a thing of the past more and more fleet vehicle operators will look to switch over to an all electric fleet.