Fleets everywhere are moving to electric due to regulatory requirements and sustainability goals. There’s another major reason to electrify, though: EVs offer a lower cost of delivering goods and services. Whether you’re moving people or products, EVs make it happen for less money and with lower emissions. ChargePoint saw this promise early on and began working on the challenge of charging EVs back in 2007, before there were commercial vehicles on the market. Getting started so early required an innovative approach and the strategic route ChargePoint took was to focus on the software first. That bet is paying off in terms of EV fleets being able to optimize routes, save money and deliver on time.
Acknowledge change is hard
Change can be hard in any industry, but especially so in transportation. There’s a tendency for transportation to stick with what works once you develop a repeatable process. New technology in that operation is extremely disruptive, and we’ve seen that over time. This happened in the days when we had regeneration which was extremely disruptive to business because it was a completely new business model. You saw this when we first moved to electronic braking, automatic transmissions on vehicles. You can map out those milestones in transportation and say: “this was really disruptive!” and see that the industry does push back on change a lot, because it’s very hard to do what those teams do.
You can map out those milestones in transportation and say: “this was really disruptive!” and see that the industry does push back on change a lot, because it’s very hard to do what those teams do.
- Rich Mohr, Vice President of Fleet Solutions at ChargePoint
Transportation is extremely tough. It’s one of the hardest industries to be able to be successful in over a long period of time, so when you inject change in that, it’s very hard for people to adopt. That’s why I’ve been so impressed with ChargePoint’s approach, which starts with looking for ways to build on what transportation managers already know in order to accelerate and ensure the success of electrification.
Innovative fleet payment integrations
For example, ChargePoint partners with existing transportation payment providers such as WEX to make payments integrate with existing systems. You can use the existing payment methods you have and keep your back-end systems set up as they are. There’s no need to absorb huge payment changes along with your vehicle and fueling model change. And this level of convenience in integration was only possible because ChargePoint built its charging solutions with software in mind from the start.
Keep backend systems running smoothly
In addition to maximizing efficiency, integrating systems can be a key factor in winning over drivers to EVs. I like to comment that, with electric fleets, “The biggest fault code is forgetting to plug in.” Drivers just need to adjust to a new way of working when it comes to EVs. Once they do, most are fully bought in. They appreciate the responsive performance of EVs, the lack of emissions and above all the quiet ride. They also appreciate when EVs work with the systems they already rely on to do their jobs.
EVs are a truly cost-effective solution if you get the right equipment, right drivers and right fueling solution. ChargePoint is here to help organizations every step of the way. Watch the full video podcast for more information about how we can do that.
