Fleet operators across diverse industries — from delivery services and retailers to car rental agencies and local governments — are increasingly embracing electric technology. To ensure you have the most seamless electrification process, we provide best practices and dispel common myths below.
Part 1: Infrastructure
Plan for the average, not the worst case.
Myth: EV batteries are empty after driving and charging sessions need to go from empty to full.
Fact: Rarely do batteries get to empty for a variety of reasons. Expecting a charging session to fill most vehicles from empty to full will result in infrastructure that is overbuilt. Additionally, fleets often know exactly how many miles they’re driving per day, which simplifies the charging experience even further.
Charging should always match needs.
Myth: EV charging comes in a variety of different speeds, but faster is always better.
Fact: Charging speed should be matched to the vehicle’s energy need over the dwell time of the parking session. Level 2 charging can easily meet the need for a wide variety of charging scenarios. Depot charging with L2 EVSEs is a convenient and cost-effective solution for overnight fleet charging. Not to mention, overnight depot charging doesn’t take your driver off the road, which means more time on the road and more business for you.
Part 2: Cost
EV chargers should not be the primary cost concern.
Myth: I need to find the cheapest charger in order to reduce costs.
Fact: A majority of the cost of EV charging comes from costs outside of the EV charging station itself, including construction, wires, conduit, electrical components, permits, utility upgrades and program management. Consider the total costs of deployment rather than just a single component of it.
Other costs of installation vary widely.
Myth: I can expect consistent cost per charging port across different locations.
Fact: Costs widely vary based on the time of construction, state of the site, cost of materials and desires for placement of the charging stations.
Human time costs money.
Myth: If I can’t afford enough charging stations, then I’ll just get some employees to move vehicles.
Fact: Human capital can add up really fast – even for low-cost employees. The right technology that moves charging around as needed to handle different charging scenarios can be more cost-effective than paying humans to move vehicles. Additionally, you can easily implement visual smart alerts, like in-field LED lights and mobile notifications to immediately indicate when charging is complete.
Electricity is cheaper than gasoline or diesel.
Myth: Electricity cost is constant.
Fact: Electricity frequently varies over the course of a day. Also, demand charging can have a huge impact on the cost of electricity. The cost of electricity should be considered as a part of the installation, including the predicted time of charging to minimize costs. Overnight fleet charging is a great example of that.
Buy for today and scale tomorrow.
Myth: I’ll get some chargers now and figure out how to use them later. I need charging so desperately so I just need to get started somehow.
Fact: Incorrectly sized charging architecture is not cost effective. Underused infrastructure is expensive because the costs cannot be recovered. Overused infrastructure might have missed cost savings during the initial installation. Choose a solution that’s easily scalable when you need it, while minimizing infrastructure upgrade costs.
Part 3: Reliability
Networking EV chargers requires some extra thought.
Myth: Networking is easy.
Fact: Networking can have a lot of different permutations in uplink, local communication and control. The more complex your infrastructure gets, the higher the price tag, the higher the risk of failure, and the more difficult it will be to scale. The right technology can help minimize your infrastructure upgrade costs and complexity, while making it easier to scale. Choosing the wrong infrastructure approach and technology can quickly lead to astronomical costs that far exceed any hardware cost savings.
Network outages can affect charging reliability.
Myth: Networking outages are not considered a reliability issue.
Fact: Network outages are charging outages. Charging systems that require cloud for control are going to need networking as well. If your charging solution can’t handle downtime, then look for a solution that can when something fails. The goal is to keep your vehicles charging even when the cell network is down. With our unique SmartPower wireless mesh technology, not only can your vehicles continue to charge when the network goes down, you can also continue to load balance in real time.
Part 4: Solution
Not all load balancing technology is created equal.
Myth: Load balancing is an industry term that’s consistent across vendors.
Fact: When it comes to maximizing your EV charging capacity, not all load management solutions are created equal. In fact, what most EV charging companies call load balancing is really circuit splitting or load splitting based on pre-programmed power allocation rules. The way we do load balancing is really intelligent power management, which allocates power in real time based on what each vehicle demands at any given time. This enables you to install up to 10X more chargers on limited infrastructure.
EV charger data is more valuable than you may think.
Myth: I don’t need the data that comes from an EV charger.
Fact: Almost everyone is going to want to know what’s happening with their EV chargers to optimize your charging operations, improve your business efficiency, and unlock new revenue streams or cost savings. With data insights from your charging operations, you can drive real business results from improving the utilization rate of your charging infrastructure to driving your clean energy usage goals.
A solution today should be supported tomorrow.
Myth: My charging solution works today and I expect that if I don’t change anything, then it should continue to work.
Fact: You want a provider that’s planning on the future with the capacity to make upgrades as needed. Additionally, you want to find a solution that is vertically integrated, and can provide all of the hardware, services, and software you need when developing your EV charging project.
A successful EV fleet strategy requires thoughtful planning: implementing appropriate charging infrastructure, understanding total costs, using data effectively, and choosing reliable technologies. With this measured approach, you can build scalable charging systems that support and maximize both operational efficiency and sustainability goals.
Learn more about EverCharge at evercharge.com.
