NAVIGATING
ELECTRIC

How to assess your fleet’s readiness for electric vehicles.

With Volkswagen Group’s sustainable mobility strategy gathering pace,, the benefits of adopting hybrid and electric vehicles for your fleet and working towards a carbon-neutral future are now well understood.

But whether it’s stakeholder management, charging infrastructure considerations or ensuring that your fleet remains fit for purpose, measuring the feasibility of transitioning to electric requires careful planning.

From reducing fuel costs to qualifying for tax breaks and even boosting an organisation’s reputation through social responsibility, there are many advantages to be gained from embracing alternatively fuelled vehicles.

However, knowing exactly when to make the switch and being confident that your fleet is ready isn’t always obvious.

Is your fleet ready for hybrid and electric vehicles? And how can you be sure? These are important questions and ones that ŠKODA is here to help you answer.

Assess your vehicle requirements

When choosing an alternatively fuelled vehicle, decisions should be made based on a number of factors.

Ask yourself and your drivers:

> How suitable are your current vehicles? Identify areas for immediate, mid and long-term improvement.

> Are hybrid and electric vehicles able to meet the demands of your business?

> Do these vehicles offer the space, versatility and practicality to carry equipment needed for the job?

> Which safety, entertainment and connectivity features matter most to your drivers and the nature of the role?

> Financially, does switching to alternative-fuel benefit the company, department or driver?

With a firm idea of exactly what you’re looking for in an alternatively fuelled vehicle, you’ll be better placed to choose the right ones for your fleet

Measure your fleet analytics

The more you know about your fleet activity the better, particularly when assessing your readiness for electric vehicles.

A detailed review of fleet analytics will arm you with the information you need to build a successful electrification strategy.

Measure vehicle usage, including time spent on the road and miles covered. Also consider busier and quiet periods, along with accessibility to charging stations, whether at home or on-the-go. Weigh up how vehicle usage might change in the mid to long-term, in line with the goals and growth plans of your business.

Gathering and understanding this fleet data can hold the key to switching to electric successfully.

Review your infrastructure

Having the right infrastructure in place before your fleet goes electric is vitally important. Your drivers will need some or even all of the following; home-charging hardware installation, office-based charging facilities and access to public charging infrastructure.

Plans for all of the above, along with assessing if hybrid or electric vehicles qualify for government grants, need to be mapped out well in advance. For example, plug-in car grants for selected hybrid and electric vehicles as well as both a workplace and vehicle home charging scheme from the government, all designed to reduce the cost of charger installation.

As part of ŠKODA’s electric solutions, we have partnered with PodPoint for charging solutions and Octopus Energy for green energy tariffs, to equip your fleet with the infrastructure it needs to make the move.

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In addition, we are now also able to introduce Fleet Managers to MINA, which is a software that brings together all employee’s charging costs and data, making it simple to manage from one online dashboard. .

Beyond this, vehicle servicing and maintenance are both crucial in keeping a hybrid and electric fleet moving.

How ŠKODA can support your fleet

ŠKODA is helping fleets of all sizes assess their readiness for electric vehicles. Through combining our wide experience in this area, we have built a set of tools to help businesses and drivers self-assess whether alternative-fuel is right for current or future business requirements.

ŠKODA iV-4-Fleet

With the ŠKODA iV-4-Fleet tool, we identify a fleet’s strengths and weaknesses, to support you in making an informed decision on whether your business is ready to switch to electric.

iV-4-FLEET

ŠKODA-iV-4-ME

Our other tool, ŠKODA-iV-4-ME?, is to help drivers work out if they should choose an electric vehicle as a company car. Fleet personnel can share this with their drivers.

iV-4-ME