A survey of 200 fleet managers produced by 360 Media Group Ltd and powered by instant PR for Paua, electric vehicle (EV) public charging specialists, showed that 40 percent of fleets do not use any public charging. This latest research also identified that over 70 percent of car fleets and 76 percent of van fleets intend to order electric vehicles during 2022.
Currently, just over half of fleets surveyed claim that they use public charging. This leads to a steep knowledge curve for those fleets that are accelerating their investment in electric vehicles. Of these firms surveyed, 85 percent agreed they would use public charging if there was a single solution to access multiple chargepoints with one single bill.
The 200 fleet managers questioned are responsible for around 12,000 vehicles and nearly 70 percent of the respondents are the ultimate decision makers for the fleets. This research highlights some of the challenges that fleets face when considering their electrification strategies.
Billing has proved particularly challenging for fleets. With 75 public charging networks in the UK, there is a challenge with different apps, cards and membership schemes. This makes it hard work for fleet managers who don’t have time to organise all of these.
Having a single solution to bring all these bill’s together would be a significant time saver. Plus, it enables the management of VAT invoices to ensure that accounting is done properly.
Niall Riddell, Paua CEO and co-founder, said: “What is incredible about this response is the missed opportunity that public charging networks are facing due to the complexity that fleets face accessing and using the solution.
“Paua’s electric fuel card solution seeks to overcome these challenges enabling fleets easier access to public charging.”
Public charging solutions, like the one offered by Paua, are an important part of a fleet electrification strategy. It enables fleets to free themselves from depot and home-based charging solutions.
Public charging can avoid expensive depot and grid upgrades. It enables fleets the ability to consider electrifying alternative routes and to consider smaller battery vehicles.
The key to the use of public charging for fleets is ensuring that drivers have a simple solution enabling them to find the correct chargepoint and initiate a charge event with either with an app or with an RFID card. As a result, the fleet manager ends up with a single bill making life much easier.
Finding charging points is particularly crucial at this early stage. Drivers need to know that the charger they are heading towards is the right speed for the time they have available. For example, a 50kW+ charger for a 20-30 minute charge rather than a 7kW charger which would take a couple of hours. Plus, drivers need to know it has the right connector for their vehicle and is available to use.
Paua is a technology-led clean technology business solving the payment solutions of public charging for fleets. For every average fleet vehicle transitioned to electric, five tonnes of CO2/year are not emitted into the atmosphere.
Removing public charging barriers for fleets and enabling more electric vehicles into fleets is Paua’s mission. Currently, 54 percent of potential electric vehicle drivers indicate that public charging is a barrier to their adoption of the technology.
Paua uses their electric fuel card which enables drivers to find, charge and pay for charging via mobile app or RFID card.
The app provides filters and dynamic data for drivers at the 3,000+ chargepoints that Paua covers. The electric fuel card and app cover popular networks such as Mer, Osprey, Char.gy and Fastned fleets and to help drivers can gain confidence in public charging.
Paua is a member of the Tech Nation Net Zero 2.0 programme, part of the Geovation accelerator programme and will be appearing at COP26, with the Greenbackers 26forCOP26 fundraising programme. They are also at the Decarbonisation Summit sponsored by SSE Energy Solutions.
