OPERATOR EXPERIENCE
How Anglian Water dived into EVs
Anglian Water has made a huge investment in more than 300 electric vehicles for its fleet. The company’s head of fleet, Mick Farmer, explains the process
How Anglian Water dived into EVs
Anglian Water has made a huge investment in more than 300 electric vehicles for its fleet. The company’s head of fleet, Mick Farmer, explains the process
When did you first start planning to move to electric vehicles at Anglian Water?
Why did you select the specific vehicles – both vans and passenger cars – for the fleet?
For the vans, it was all about range, usability and ease of charging. The cars are a user-chooser scheme.
What specific vehicle models have you chosen for the fleet?
The small vans are Vauxhall Combo-Es and Nissan E-NV200s; medium-sized we went for the Vauxhall Vivaro-e and we also have Maxus eDeliver 9 vans at the top of the size range. There are various makes and models of electric cars on fleet, including those from Tesla, Kia, Volvo, Ford and Hyundai.
What was the reaction from the drivers to shifting to electric vehicles?
Most van drivers welcomed the move to EV, although we are only at the start of our journey so there may be some challenges along the way. The salary sacrifice has also been well received across the business.
What have been the biggest challenges in introducing EVs to the fleet and how have these been overcome?
For the vans, it’s been the driving range and payload. Charging isn’t an issue at the moment as most vehicles are charged at Anglian Water sites, although we do have a number – 15 of them – now charging at home, which are linked to Mina technology.
I would expect the challenges to be around infrastructure going forward – and the drivers who are unable to charge at home.
When it comes to charging, what investment has been made in infrastructure?
We now have 172 site-based chargers, ranging from seven to 22kWh, but we will increase the number of chargers pro rata to the increase of electric vans. We will also be introducing more home-based chargers and a solution where our charging activities are on a single platform.
How do drivers charge their vehicles out of hours? And how many have off-street parking/charging facilities at home?
We surveyed all of our operational staff to find out how many can charge from home and are currently working through the data.
What are the biggest benefits of the introduction of the EVs to Anglian Water?
Meeting net zero targets.
What is the business’s plan with existing ICE models and their replacement with EVs?
Net Zero 2030 is where we will be and there is a replacement plan in place to enable this to be achieved. However, there are challenges around medium and large vans in terms of range and payload that we will need to overcome. We plan that 25% of the fleet will be fully EV by 2025.
What advice would you give to fleets who are looking to transition to EVs from ICE vehicles?
Ensure that the prework is comprehensive to ensure range, payload and infrastructure plans meet your needs. The key is being able to do things differently without disrupting day-to-day business/engineer productivity and customer needs.
