For fleets that are interested in acquiring electric trucks, I’ve often been told that it’s best they include utilities early on in the conversation to gain a better understanding of infrastructure changes and costs as well as a timeframe for charger installation.
Not only that but utilities can help fleets understand the fundamentals of using electricity as a fuel which is less expensive than diesel and gas particularly when charging overnight when grid demand is at its lowest.
Southern California Edison has a webpage dedicated to educating businesses on EV adoption. Check it out. Their Charge Ready Transport program is geared towards medium and heavy-duty fleets while their Charge Ready Program is tailored for light-duty.
Soon SCE will offer customers submeter billing which will provide a separate invoice for EV charging. Bean counters will undoubtedly rejoice. That’s more on par with traditional fuel billing and will be a welcomed change in accounting.
So while it’s good advice to first turn to utilities when considering EV additions for the fleet, I’m not hearing much about the importance of becoming educated on EV batteries. That’s strange since EV performance and upfront cost is tied so closely to its battery. Investment return and risk management are also key factors. In fact, it’s those latter two that deserve a lot of consideration.
Investing in a battery that provides enough power to meet duty cycle demands is critical especially when other factors like freezing or hot weather and driver habits can impact range. From that standpoint, it may be best to go big with a more powerful battery if it’s likely that there will be times when the truck will be operating out of its comfort zone.
