So what’s it like transitioning to electric vehicles?
Arun Rajagopalan, co-founder and CEO of automotive software company Motorq, likened it to 1923 when vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICE) were entering mass production and rolling out to consumers and businesses alike who generally didn’t know much about the new fangled inventions, let alone where to fuel them.
Sound familiar? Rajagopalan was one of four experts on a webinar Thursday titled Leading the Charge: Fleet Electrification Strategies hosted by Element Fleet Management. Other panelists included Jason Kazmar, director of EV strategy and sustainability at Element Fleet Management; Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of strategic planning at Cox Automotive; and Jake Navarro, director of clean transportation products at National Grid. While there are some similarities between EV deployment and the ICE vehicle rollout a 100 years ago, panelists pointed out some interesting differences that fleets should know to optimize EV ownership.
First, get cozy with your utility. After all, an EV won’t amount to much without the power to support it. Nonetheless, some fleets don’t always approach it that way.
“We have seen and heard of in other utility service territories, horror stories where a fleet had acquired EVs without having talked to their electric provider to figure out how they’re going to fuel those vehicles,” Navarro said. “So just make sure that you're proactively communicating with your electric utility, and to the extent that you have a long-term electrification plan, share that with your electric utility too. That's such a great input for us to figure out our electric network expansion planning.”
[Related: Watch three new electric trucks revealed at ACT Expo]
