EV leasing company DriveElectric has introduced a new platform designed to allow fleets to track the cost and carbon emissions associated with charging their vehicles in real time.
The EV Hub gives managers access to a dashboard featuring insights for individual drivers, vehicles, and charging locations, as well as allowing reports to be generated on a fleet’s overall progress.
The hub uses live National Grid data to calculate the CO2 emissions incurred by the electricity being used for charging at any given moment, based on how it is being generated. This is then combined with vehicle and driving data to produce a CO2 grams per mile figure.
The hub can also be integrated with the Charge+ system, which is designed to automatically optimise the energy delivered to an EV, enabling businesses to charge with low carbon electricity.
Speaking to Business Car at the Fully Charged Live UK South 2023 show, DriveElectric managing director Mike Potter explained the reasoning behind the hub’s development.
He said: “We were early in EVs, and we have been thinking for a little while about what’s next. We’re getting through the early adoption stage, and one of our passions is how we get to the truth of the picture, especially with carbon.
“That’s one of the reasons we started doing this, and we could see that there is a real need to help people be informed about what’s really happening with their carbon footprint with the vehicles.
“Very often when we first sit down with people and say ‘Why do you want EVs?’, carbon is one of the things they talk about, so we think we’re on to something that will resonate.”
As well as the environmental aspect, Potter said there was also a strong business incentive for fleets to track their carbon.
He said: “One of the key reasons is, not just because we want to see carbon footprint go down - we do, and a lot of our customers do as well, just for the cause of it – but because there are some really concrete business reasons.
“If you are in business today and you are selling to a corporate or a public body, or any large businesses B2B, they are going to ask you about your plans to reduce carbon. It’s pretty much part of every tender document that you see.
“So, this is based in concrete business strategy for people. They need to be able to show what they are doing clearly if they are going to do business with people.
“And even if you’ve got retail customers, they want to see this stuff happening. This is about enabling you to sell in a lot of ways.”
Potter explained that the hub is not a fleet management system. Instead, it is designed to work alongside them.
He said: “We did quite a lot of research with fleets and one of the things we worked out was they already have a fleet management system. It would be far more difficult to replace all of that.
“We would in future enable this to be integrated into other fleet management systems, for sure, but right now we need to get the thing out and show people how it works.”
Potter also said that a feature would soon be added for drivers to view their own charging reports, to get insights on where, for instance, they may be over-relying on expensive public rapid chargers.
He suggested that league tables could also be published within a fleet, motivating drivers to improve.
