Medium-sized companies are increasingly turning to electric vehicles when modernising their fleets. More than a quarter of all companies in Germany already have electric vehicles in their fleet. Objectives such as reducing CO2 emissions, lower fleet and maintenance costs as well as independence from energy and fuel prices through their own renewable generation plants are contributing significantly to the switch to electric mobility in the business environment.
Are you also thinking about converting your company fleet to electric mobility, i.e. electrification, but have doubts about whether it is really worthwhile and practical? In our blog article, we show you when the conversion to electric mobility makes sense, which parameters you should consider at the beginning and what you should pay particular attention to when electrifying your company.
1. PARAMETERS TO BE CALCULATED For electrification
First of all, you should determine the current situation in your company and define your requirements and wishes for the future. Parameters such as the size and composition of your vehicle fleet, the current purposes and utilisation profiles of the vehicles, but also your operational objectives, such as the integration of your own renewable generation systems such as photovoltaic systems, play a decisive role.
The larger and more diverse your fleet is, the more sensible it is to carry out a fleet analysis. The usage profile of your vehicles, i.e. how often, which distances are covered on average, minimum and maximum per vehicle, is a decisive factor for this. Once the number and desired models of e-vehicles for your fleet have been determined, the topic of charging infrastructure can be planned. Objectives, such as the generation of renewable electricity via photovoltaic systems to supply your fleet, should be taken into account in advance when designing the charging infrastructure solution.
2. VEHICLE FLEET AND COMPOSITION
In order to assess the current situation, you should first take a close look at the composition of your own fleet. For example, are you a delivery service or a craft business and have a rather small fleet? Such fleets are often characterised by uniform deployment profiles and predominantly one type of vehicle is used equally by all employees. In this case, our tip is that you can carry out the evaluation of routes and vehicle utilisation yourself relatively easily using logbooks or a tracking app.
The situation is different for large fleets with different vehicles and purposes. Here, a manual evaluation is extremely time-consuming and should therefore be carried out with the help of software. Fleet analysis tools or corresponding consultancies are suitable for this. umschalten.de would be happy to support you with these extensive analyses. Please contact us.
3. APPLICATION AND USAGE PROFILE OF YOUR VEHICLES
As a result of your own or professional fleet analysis, the first step is to obtain an overview of the actual deployment profile of your vehicles. Several factors per vehicle are of importance here: - the utilization (is the vehicle on the road non-stop or are there longer/regular idle times?), - the average distance traveled, - the longest distance traveled per vehicle, and - the frequency distribution of trips by route length. Once you have analyzed the driving profile of your fleet, the next step is to evaluate it, Whether and how many vehicles could also cover the distances traveled as e-vehicles.
4. SELECTION OF E-VEHICLES
When selecting suitable E-vehicle models you should use their technical key data draw on. The decisive parameters here are- the electric range of the vehicle in km and
- represents the maximum charging power of the vehicle.
| Actual driving profile per vehicle | Actual driving profile per vehicle | Actual driving profile per vehicle | Actual driving profile per vehicle | |
| SCENARIES | JOURNEYS UP TO 10 KM | TRIPS THAT CAN BE MADE BY SELECTED E-VEHICLES CAN BE CARRIED OUT | JOURNEYS THAT CANNOT BE MADE BY SELECTED E-VEHICLES CANNOT BE PERFORMED | RECOMMENDATION |
| SCENARIO 1 | predominantly | x | x | Omission or replacement by e-bike |
| SCENARIO 2 | x | predominantly | x | Replacement by e-vehicle |
| SCENARIO 3 | x | x | predominantly | Retain conventional vehicle or replace with plug-in hybrid vehicle |
| SCENARIO 4 | x | predominantly | little | Replacement by e-vehicle, if disposition possible |
5. CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE
Do you have the number and Type of e-vehicles needed determined, you must now decide how these loaded are to be used. Once again, the application profile of the vehicles is decisive for this. Depending on the application, there are three possible variants for charging the e-vehicles:- Fast charging infrastructure
- Normal charging infrastructure
- Charging points for workers at home
5.1 FAST CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE
If your vehicles are in constant use over 24 h, they must be fast large charging capacities be provided in order to keep the vehicles that are needed at the time operational. In doing so, consideration can be given to either using some Install fast-charging DC charging points at the site or, alternatively, as is common with e-taxis, for example, on Public fast charging infrastructure to fall back on. Of course, not all regions are equally well connected. In rural areas, there are far fewer opportunities to charge the electric vehicle than in large cities. In order to be covered as a company, the regional charging network therefore be included in the decision for or against own DC charging infrastructure. Here is a map of the public charging points of the Federal Network Agency (as of 5/1/2021):5.2 NORMAL CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE
If your vehicles are parked at the company siteduring the day for longer periods of time and finally overnight for a long period of time for charging, then it is most convenient to provide each e-vehicle with its own private normal charging point, i.e. with up to 22 kW AC charging power, in the form of a wallbox or charging pole.
The charging capacity per charging point should be
- from the maximum charging power of the vehicle,
- the available loading time and
- depend on the total maximum power available at the site.
Ifall vehicles are charging at the same time, a load management system is usually used that either distributes the maximum power available at the site evenly among all vehicles or gives preference to an electric vehicle that is in most frequent use, for example.
When charging overnight, even low charging powers per vehicle are sufficient on average to fully recharge the battery of an electric car. For example, a fully discharged electric vehicle with a 32 kWh battery requires an average power of 2.7 kW when charging for 12 hours.
A corresponding funding programme for the development of corporate charging infrastructure for fleets and employee charging has been announced for summer 2021. As soon as the funding programme has been published, we will inform you again on umschalten.de.
5.3 CHARGING POINTS FOR EMPLOYEES AT HOME
If your employees also use the electric company car as a private vehicle , the installation of charging technology at the employee's home should be considered. If a wallbox is installed by you as the employer, it can be provided to the employee free of charge. The transfer is considered a non-cash benefit, but is tax-exempt until at least 2030.
There are different possibilities regarding the reimbursement of the charging current. You can find out exactly which ones in our article on tax benefits for your electric company car.
5.4 INTEGRATION OF OWN GENERATION PLANTS
If your company's charging infrastructure is also to be supplied with self-generated renewable electricity, e.g. from photovoltaic systems, the planning and installation becomes somewhat more complicated. In this case, we recommend drawing up a location concept and definitely seeking an exchange with your local distribution network operator. In addition, an energy or tax consultant should be consulted to assess the EEG* and electricity tax issues. Renewable Energies Act
6 CONCLUSION: Electrification of the corporate fleet
There are many parameters to keep in mind when partially or completely electrifying your company fleet. But the effort is worth it, because subsidy projects such as the environmental bonus for the purchase of e-vehicles, the announced subsidy for company charging infrastructure for the summer of 2021 or tax benefits for e-vehicles lower the hurdles for a change enormously. And in terms of sustainability, converting your fleet is definitely worthwhile.
You are also welcome to here download our whitepaper on the topic or send your questions directly to send.
