The cost of highway charging is pricing some fleets out of electric vehicle adoption, the Association of Fleet Professionals’ (AFP) has warned.
Paul Hollick, chair of the industry association, explained that the price of power made running costs sometimes unsustainable for fleets whose drivers don’t have access to home or depot charging.
“We’re looking at a situation where using a public charger on the motorway might be 80p/kWh compared to perhaps a quarter of that or even less for people who have a charger on their drive.
“It’s a difficult situation. If you have drivers who live in a terraced house or an apartment so can’t install a charger at home, and who don’t often visit a location with car park or depot charging, then there is no choice but to use retail charging and it is exponentially more expensive.”
Such exponential charging costs mean some fleets are unable to trade off the higher purchase prices of electric cars and vans against the typically low costs of charging – and are being priced out of electrification.
Hollick added that it was further evidence that a “massively improved public infrastructure is the number one element that would help EV adoption”.
“Not only would widespread low-cost on-street charging help fleets with affordability but it would mean that day-to-day operation of electric vans would become more viable for many fleets by providing overnight facilities.
“It would also bring a potentially significant boost to the used EV market. We could relatively soon find ourselves in a situation where used electric car values fall to a point that they are opened up to a much wider range of buyers but that the charging options open to them are limited. Unless people can charge economically, they are understandably unlikely to buy.
“Really, what we want to see is a massive increase in on-street charging happen very rapidly and this is something that we would very much urge whichever government is elected this year to examine.”
It’s an area where the AFP has been working hard to support fleets – the association is running a project mapping areas where charging is most required and it’s spotlighting the clear opportunities for fleets to work with local authorities that are accessing centralised Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Funding from the Government to support charge point delivery.
“There is the potential for change to happen quickly with a constructive approach,” added Hollick.
“It does need to feel as though things are happening on the ground much more rapidly than is now the case. There needs to be visible, nearby, low-cost EV charging for all.”
The AFP has also been working to make shared charging a viable option for fleets.
Research undertaken by the association in October 2023 showed almost six out of 10 van fleets (58%) would consider sharing their depot or public charging infrastructure with others to make electrification more practical.
The AFP’s new shared charging committee says it’s making strong progress on its work to investigate ways in which businesses can make their own chargers available to other organisations on a reciprocal basis.
