Electric vehicles are changing the roads of the UK. More and more businesses as well as families are making the switch to EVs, but why? Here is a quick and simple guide to some of the advantages that battery-powered cars, vans, trucks, and lorries have over their internal combustion cousins.
The New Company Car
Whether you are a sales representative crisscrossing the country or an executive of the board on your way to a meeting, you may well be driving a company car as a perk of the job. The advances in electric vehicles are finally making it possible for companies to make the switch from old-school internal combustion engines to battery-powered cars. Take a look here at LV Electrix – Ultimate Electric Car Guide to find out more.
The range anxiety that people experienced just five or ten years ago is gone. There is infrastructure for EV recharging available nationwide, with just about every motorway service station stocked up with chargers. This is making electric vehicles the sensible choice for sales reps and execs across the country, and for delivery drivers and maintenance services too. Fast and cheap charging saves businesses time and money, and lower maintenance costs add up to even more savings, especially across a whole fleet of vehicles.
Electric Vans, Trucks, and Lorries
EVs are growing in size as well as popularity. The earliest EVs, from as long ago as the 1970s, were small and light to help boost their range. Thanks to more powerful batteries with better chemistry, electric cars can be made in exactly the same way as their petrol-powered cousins.
Bigger vehicles like vans, trucks, and lorries are now also joining the electric revolution and battery-powered behemoths are hitting the roads already. Nationwide delivery services like DPD and Amazon Prime are already switching to electric vans en masse, with thousands of new battery-powered vans delivering packages to homes on every street in every suburb.
Lorries and trucks are the next on the list. The first of Tesla’s full-scale articulated lorries are expected on the roads in the new year, and haulage firms are eager to start using them. The cost of fuel is skyrocketing, much fast than the cost of electricity. The potential savings for businesses that use vehicles are huge, and much too big to ignore.
Making Your Own Fuel
The biggest potential advancement for businesses is not in the vehicles, but in how they are charged. Imagine if you could grow your own diesel fuel to power the vans and cars of your business. You could save thousands a month on fuel bills. Pairing an EV fleet with solar power generation and battery storage can be a game changer for businesses of any size.
Fuelling your fleet with the power of the sun is going to be a big part of the future for many businesses. It does require some investment in infrastructure in your vehicle yards and car parks, but the returns soon come rolling in to help solar panels and battery packs pay for themselves. Being able to remove this cost from the balance sheet can make a massive difference to operating costs and to the profitability of any business.
Solar power generation can even generate a new revenue stream as well as kilowatts for your EVs. Excess electricity can be sold to the national grid, helping to cut down on electricity costs and even turning a profit. If you start to take renewable energy seriously, your business can become greener in more ways than one; you can save the planet and make money at the same time.
Future Proofing Your Fleet
Not only do electric vehicles have the latest propulsion hardware, but they are also packed with technological innovations and software that are making self-driving vehicles possible. Many EVs can take over from their drivers on the motorway, or even on the roads in towns and cities, and get from A to B by themselves. This is a safer way to drive, with fewer accidents happening to EVs than any other type of vehicle. Not only does this help keep your employees safe when they are out on the road it also reduces the cost of insurance claims and the premiums you pay.
When you add these potential savings to the reduction in maintenance costs and the huge drop in fuel cost, EVs suddenly become a very attractive option for businesses as well as families. By switching to electric vehicles early you are saving money and future-proofing your fleet so that when self-driving becomes the norm, your business is ready to take advantage.
Once you begin to appreciate all the advantages that electric vehicles have over traditional internal combustion powered cars, vans, trucks, and lorries it is easy to see why they are so popular. The future of the commercial fleet is undoubtedly electric.
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