What do fleet management companies do?

To make sure electric car fleet management is clear and simple, here we’ll explain what fleet management is for EV vehicles. We’ll also look at how fleet management works, how it can help you optimise your organisation’s cars and vans, and what EV fleet management with DriveElectric looks like. 

A fleet is the selection of vehicles owned or leased by a company for business use, ranging from delivery vans to employee company cars. Whilst a fleet can include bicycles, coaches, forklift trucks, and even private jets, most business fleets are made up of the cars and vans driven by employees for daily business tasks. 

Fleet management is the process of choosing, acquiring, running and optimising a business’ vehicles, whilst EV fleet management is focussed on managing a fleet of electric business vehicles. If your organisation already has vehicles, your business will already be engaged with some level of fleet management. 

EV fleet management can include: 

• Choosing and procuring the right electric vehicles for a business – including identifying the best vehicles for different business needs and finding competitive leasing contracts. 
• Supporting employees in buying electric vehicles – such as introducing electric vehicle Salary Sacrifice schemes. 
• Maintaining those electric vehicles – including regular preventative maintenance and repairing problems that can reduce EV efficiency or ground them. 
• Installing EV infrastructure – such as ensuring charging points are available at key locations and that they’re well maintained. 
• Cost management and fleet optimisation – fleet management can help identify and reduce costs, and can aid in improving fleet performance through using telematics and other analytics tools. 
• Impact tracking and sustainability reporting – tracking sustainability measures can aid in monitoring and reporting, setting sustainability goals and meeting regulatory requirements. As well as obtaining certifications, funding and grants. 

More and more organisations are upgrading to electric vehicles for a variety of reasons, including: 

• Reduced carbon emissions and pollution – most importantly, EVs can help reduce the greenhouse gases and pollutants your business emits.  
• Reduced costs – electric vehicles can be cheaper to run and maintain than petrol and diesel fleets. 
• Other financial incentives – the UK government is committed to reaching Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050, and is offering a range of grants and other financial support to businesses to help them reduce carbon emissions. By switching to an electric fleet, your company can benefit from grants, funding, and other incentives. These include the Workplace Charging Scheme, exemptions from congestion and low emission zones charges, and lower Benefit-in-Kind rates on electric company cars. 
• Improved work conditions – EVs can be quieter, smoother to drive, and will reduce levels of pollution in work environments. 
• Improved business reputation – customers and other stakeholders often look favourably on businesses that demonstrate social responsibility. 
• Raised employee morale – lots of employees will prefer driving EVs at work, and plenty will appreciate the opportunity to easily switch to electric company cars.