Electric vehicles will help prompt businesses to rethink their transport use-and that will be their most important impact, according to CFC Solutions.
The automotive software company says that the limited range of EVs means that fleets will have limited use for them for the time being-but their arrival on the market will help force businesses to think more about how they use transport and why.
Neville Briggs, managing director at CFC, explains: “Electric vehicles are likely to have only a minor role on fleets in the short-medium term because of their short range. However, the range issue does start to prompt some interesting questions.
“What range limitations may do is force fleet managers to start to think about individual journeys and, in doing so, start to consider journey management.”
Briggs said that this could represent a fundamental shift away from thinking about the use of fleet vehicles as an all-encompassing business transport solution.
He said: “A fleet of conventional company cars or vans is really a solution to every business transport need that an employer may have – from distributing goods across the whole of the country to a multi-stop local journey to visit customers. There are few constraints made on distances, number of locations or timing.
Attracted by the low running costs of EVs and the tax incentives to incorporate them into fleets, firms might start to split transport needs to suit specific vehicles, i.e. electric vehicles could complete local journeys while conventional cars deal with longer distance journeys. It could even make businesses reconsider longer journeys altogether and make greater use of conference calling.
“However, an EV forces the fleet manager to consider the impact of a single journey. And, once that process starts, it can open other doors.
“There is a possibility that EVs could start the perhaps long-overdue process of more fleet managers becoming business travel managers,” Briggs concluded.
