Paying for charging is one of the biggest challenges a fleet will have to manage, just as paying for fuel is one of the biggest challenges today.
The entire system of supply is different from that which you’re used to, as are the suppliers, meaning that your company will have to adapt to entirely new ways of paying.
There are a number of areas to consider and new processes to put in place when your company begins transitioning to an all-electric fleet, and for companies who haven’t modernised their fuel payment operations yet it’s a great opportunity to get ahead of the pack and start saving on everyday expenses.
Network costs
The costs for charging can vary a lot depending on the prices of rapid, ultra-rapid charging and charging at home or at your company’s own office or depot. For the very fastest charging the costs can be as much as 70p per kWh, while the price of electricity from a wall socket is currently capped at 0.34p per kWh.
It’s important to establish a balance of need versus cost. There’s no point in topping off a 90% charged battery with an ultra-rapid public charger when it’s twice as expensive than simply waiting to charge at home. Likewise, if a driver has plenty of time – a lunch break for instance – then they can use slower and less expensive charging solutions.
Charging also takes place in different places. With these varying conditions and a wide range of suppliers and costs, trying to understand the exact amount to reclaim can be difficult for drivers. While all business mileage can be reclaimed at 8p per mile by following HMRC’s Advisory Electric Rate (AER), this is not always accurate, particularly when electricity prices are high, and especially when ultra-rapid charging is used. Drivers can be thousands of pounds out of pocket when accounting for the difference between what they spend and what they can be compensated.
Delayed bills for home charging
An issue some fleet drivers encounter is ‘bill shock’ for home charging. For the first few months their electricity bills don’t noticeably change as the supplier is not taking account at that point of the increased usage in its monthly bill.
Then, when it takes a reading, it revises the monthly charge based on the new, increased usage, which means the driver is suddenly confronted with a much bigger bill they might not have been expecting.
The benefits of an EV solution
For charging on the public network, our Allstar One Electric card makes payments simple and easy. Similarly, for those fleets that need the ability for drivers to charge their vehicles at home for work purposes, our home charging solution (Allstar Homecharge) provides accurate payment for the costs of driver’s EV charging at home. And we mitigate bill shock as we pay the bill every month direct to the drivers’ energy supplier, right from the start of the EV use, based on smart tariffs.
The benefits for fleets means that they’re able to use one supplier to meet all charging needs, receive one consolidated invoice for all charging, as well as access running cost data and manage drivers and payments through the Allstar Online portal.
Collecting and utilising EV data
EVs can produce more data than their petrol and diesel counterparts. Because of the nature of how electricity is produced and delivered you can account for every unit of electricity, its cost per kWh and where it was drawn. It will be up to each fleet operator to choose what level of detail they want to access, not only for what is useful to their business, but also how much data is manageable, avoiding information overload.
To learn more, download our new whitepaper 6 Steps to an Electric Fleet: What to consider in the transition to EVs or for all the latest EV news and insights, please visit our Allstar EV Insights.
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