in association with
Peter McDonald
Sales are not the only things on the increase when it comes to EVs. The overall experience is improving – thanks, in a large part, to fleets
Latest new car registration figures show sales are up 8.4% for the first four months of 2024 and in turn, for the same period, sales of BEVs are up by 10.6%.
Make no mistake, those figures won’t be good enough for most manufacturers to meet the ZEV mandate targets set by legislation when we’re taking our 2024 calendars off the wall and polishing off our 53rd turkey sandwich come 31 December. But I think it’s worth recognising the strong, positive influence that fleets are having on the numbers.
Fleet sales for the same YtD period are up 26.7% on 2023 and there is no doubt that fleets are continuing to drive BEV uptake and doing a lot of heavy lifting with regard to those overall BEV sales market trends.
There’s also no question that fleet and leasing companies are driving the wider industry forwards, particularly in terms of BEV sales. The long-term outlook for BEVs is undoubtedly positive for the future, even though the current road is a little bumpy outside of those fleet figures. The same can be seen in the van sales figures too with the 9.9% YTD rise in BEV van sales figures are a little bumpy too with a 3.1% fall for the first four months of 2024, compared to an 8.0% rise in overall new van demand.
Ironically, the challenges to help shift the retail market towards BEVs – and also those other fleets lagging behind on the switch to e-mobility – are much the same, in terms of the customer experience and also the education processes that need to happen on local, national and global levels. There is a need to educate customers, improve the customer experience overall with the transition to EVs and also the numerous charging solutions available.
So where to start? First there’s the range. According to GoCompare, the average van driver covers around 12,500 miles a year which, discounting weekends and bank holidays equates to less than 50 miles a day. Yes, there will always be those drivers doing higher mileages, but the reality is that while the majority of EV vans are yet to boast similar ranges to their car counterparts, even the least efficient van can easily manage those 50 miles without a problem.
So there’s an education that needs to occur for fleet managers, especially those running van fleets, that actually switching your fleet to EVs might be easier than they imagine when it comes to the potential ranges of their vehicles and their real-world needs.
The long-term outlook for BEVs is undoubtedly positive for the future, even though the current road is a little bumpy outside of those fleet figures
There’s no question that the customer experience is also improving. I’ll tackle charging properly in a moment, but public chargers are becoming more plentiful and, despite the scaremongering stories that you might see, rarely that congested in reality. The good news is that there are more of the faster rapid and ultra-rapid charging locations, including those from the likes of Gridserve too. So, access to public charging is becoming easier – and faster.
But that transition to EVs also requires fleet managers to think about home charging too. Providing home chargers to drivers might look expensive at first, but when you consider that even charging on the standard variable tariff is less than half the cost of a public rapid charger, that cost will soon be recovered. If the driver chooses to switch to an off-peak tariff such as those from Octopus then those savings are considerably bigger. Might it need a change of policy if currently vans are required to return to their depot each night? Yes. But again, those savings and the lack of staff downtime from public charging will be easily worth the effort of making those changes.
That education then is clearly not just for retail buyers, but also some fleet managers who either have yet to switch to electric or even need to rethink existing practices. The transition to EVs has not been an easy or entirely smooth one – and unfortunately that’s likely to continue.
However, the answers are there for those who wish to seek them out and for those who are willing to think slightly laterally with the needs of their fleets and also their charging solutions. The correct fleet solutions and decisions for yesterday are very different from those of today and in turn likely to be different again from those of tomorrow.
The very definition of the word ‘transition’ is the process or a period of changing from one state to another. Those fleets that are looking to make the switch to e-mobility in all its forms, either now or in the future, will need to go through that period of change willingly to fully realise all of the potential benefits outlined above.
Peter McDonald is mobility director at Ohme. Prior to his current role, he spent two decades working for automotive manufacturers including Nissan, SEAT and the wider Volkswagen Group.
