If you own and operate an existing fleet of vehicles, you’ll no doubt be looking at EVs with a keen eye, but also with a bunch of questions in mind. How easy is the transition? How do you manage the charging needs of an EV fleet? And, importantly, will it cost you more than it’s worth?
We get it; this is a brave new world for most businesses. But here’s the interesting thing: upgrading to an EV fleet is much simpler than you think, and it’s a transition that actually comes with a bunch of added bonuses over internal combustion engine (ICE) alternatives – some of which are financial.
On a practical level, the fact that EVs only have about 20 moving parts compared to some 2,000 in ICE vehicles means they’re often much cheaper to maintain, but the really fun stuff is in the new business opportunities that EV infrastructure can unlock.
With the right tools, fleet owners who own and operate anything from taxis and buses to delivery vans and company cars can actually generate extra revenue on top of their core business offering. Here’s how…
A not-so-fleeting fleet opportunity…
Ok, so how do you turn an EV fleet into a potential revenue stream? There are two ways to go about making the transition work for you:
1. Make your chargers publicly available
The first, and perhaps most obvious, business opportunity is to open your charging infrastructure up to the wider public. If you’ve invested in an electric fleet, you’ll no doubt also be investing in charging stations to keep those vehicles topped up and on the road.
With the right fleet charging software solution, you’ll not only be able to manage those stations 24/7 from anywhere, but you’ll also be able to manage their availability to drivers outside your business.
With Spirii’s EV software platform, for example, you’ll be able to incorporate your chargers into our wider charging network to show drivers when and where they can use your infrastructure. You’ll decide how many charge points are open to the public – and at what times – ensuring you always have enough capacity to service your own fleet first. You can even decide how much you want to charge for public use.
Your exact returns on making chargers publicly available will naturally depend on a wide range of factors, but it can be game-changing. In the case of one taxi firm in Copenhagen, for example, charge point utilization more than doubled after the infrastructure was opened to the public, with a resulting revenue stream so robust that the company now views EV charging as a commercial opportunity, rather than a cost.
And that’s especially likely to be the case for fleet owners who’ve invested in fast chargers, which are in demand across most EV markets, and can command a significant premium.
So that extra charging income can be really powerful, but it turns out that EV infrastructure also offers fleet owners another – much lesser-known – revenue opportunity…
2. Demand response scaling
Unlike petrol and gas, EV chargers form a core part of the wider electricity grid, and that brings with it the chance to provide a valuable service when it comes to balancing grid strain.
Demand response is where a grid operator pays large-scale electricity users – like charge point owner-operators – to adjust their energy consumption in response to peaks in electricity demand.
EV charging operators make for great demand response candidates because it’s easy to pause charging to prevent overloading the grid. Do that when prompted, and the company that operates your local electricity grid will actually pay your business for helping out!
This not only helps to save energy but also contributes to a more sustainable and resilient power systems.
3. Revenue streams, streamlined
The key to unlocking these additional revenue streams with EV charging stations is using a software solution that can help you optimize your entire infrastructure, from top to bottom.
In other words: To make the most of your EV enterprise fleet, you need a platform solution that's simple, scalable, and reliable – with intelligent charging infrastructure that's easy to operate and manage.
Spirii’s platform integrates market-leading backend firmware and software, easy tools for managing your network, and the intuitive, driver-friendly Spirii Go app, resulting in a complete, interconnected charging solution.
Spirii’s platform not only offers the option of allocating chargers exclusively for employee use, but it also enables companies to provide specific discounts, adjust their opening hours, set public availability, and reap financial rewards if they help regulate the power grid.
In other words, Spirii’s an all-in-one solution that helps enterprise fleet owners turn charging infrastructure into a long-term investment.
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