Hot Takes: EV Market for Fleets Is Starting to Expand

How do you make sense of it all? Hot Takes is our ongoing analysis of recent mobility news from a fleet perspective. 

“An EV is really a technology product,” says Adam Berger of Doering Fleet Management. As such, trying to set a residual on a vehicle with such rapid advancements in battery technology is not for the faint of heart. Berger shares his perspective on how to effectively write leases — particularly commercial fleet leases — for Teslas and other electric vehicles. 

Unlike electric passenger cars, the market for electric trucks is essentially still in testing phase. But that doesn’t mean fleets shouldn’t prepare now for their increasing proliferation. In this article, Heavy Duty Trucking editor Jim Park goes in-depth on where the market stands today for electric trucks from the challenges of cost, range, infrastructure, and energy consumption. (Jim is moderating a seminar at the upcoming Fleet Forward Conference that includes many of the same themes.)

I was at a conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil two weeks ago that was collocated with an electric vehicle event. The EV market in Brazil is far behind the U.S., Europe, and many Asian countries, and lacking any government incentives to buy EVs and build infrastructure. Nonetheless, key players are coming together to form this new market. Check out the photos with detailed captions.  

We’re seeing a societal shift from ownership to access, whether its subscribing to razors and movies or lipstick and meal kits. But subscribing to a vehicle is a different animal, and can subscription services really work for commercial fleets? This article posits that subscriptions could work for businesses without a dedicated fleet manager, with irregular cash flows, and intermittent vehicle needs.

We’ve only just begun with Mobility as a Service (Maas) and Fleet Management as a Service (FMaaS) and now electric Vehicle Fleet as a service (eFaaS) is entering our lexicon. Do we need eFaaS? There is so much to consider when it comes to deploying electrified fleets, from vehicle and charging infrastructure considerations to energy management, maintenance, and performance tracking, that having a guaranteed-cost-per-mile contract could be very appealing to fleets. This new partnership is one of the first in the eFaaS realm. 

Autonomous vehicle testing has to this point involved a safety driver ready to take over the vehicle in the event of a pending collision. Waymo is crossing into the new brave, new world of completely driverless autonomous testing. Are you ready to jump in the back? 

The need for increased vehicle utilization and uptime is more important than ever, so fleets are paying extra to have these services come to them. RideKleen, a Cox Automotive company, is testing a new mobile maintenance service using a Ford F-250 upfit with an intricate bin and box system with tools and supplies to service vehicles on the fly. Would this type of service work for your fleet? 

Increased vehicle congestion — and resultant pollutants — have gotten to the point that European cities are taking back their downtowns and either banning vehicles altogether, or they’re only allowing zero emission electric vehicles into certain corridors. We were wondering when and where this would happen in the U.S. An obvious choice is Manhattan, where a vehicle ban has already started during rush hour “to lessen the impact of large trucks and delivery vans.” How are businesses adjusting to not getting their goods during these times?

With the onslaught of new safety technology in vehicles, are we being lulled into a sense of complacency that these systems will replace our need to stay alert? AAA studied pedestrian detection systems and found that collisions still occurred in simulated scenarios after the systems deployed.