Hands-on awareness and driver training are the secrets to cracking acceptance of electric vehicles among company car drivers according to Karl Anders, fleet consultant at the Energy Saving Trust.
He said there was “a huge variation” in drivers’ attitudes to electric vehicles: “Some drivers, no matter what they do, are very anti all of this. Then, on the other hand, you get your eco warriors, and a lot of drivers really enjoy them when they drive them.
“Using demonstrators and getting them to drive these things makes the difference between having a fleet full of drivers who don’t understand them and aren’t interested and having a fleet full of accepted drivers.
“Driver training also makes a big difference and reduces range anxiety. A trained driver can make the difference between making the range work and not.”
Anders cited techniques such as slowing the vehicles to make use of the regenerative braking systems and making use of the ability to pre-heat or pre-cool the vehicles via the air conditioning system while they were plugged in to the mains to avoid draining the battery on the move.
