Lorna McAtear, board director at the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) and AFP director, James Pestell, have given fleet managers guidance on charging electric vehicles (EVs), tips and tricks to get the most out of EVs and dealing with pushback from drivers.

McAtear stressed that fleet managers should transition their fleet gradually and “make the switch when they can, as there are some roles and functions that cannot currently make the switch”.

She also said she encouraged vehicle familiarisation of EVs through peer-to-peer conversations and video footage during the Covid pandemic to “keep the conversation on EVs going”.

McAtear, who is also fleet manager at National Grid, said that the company held open forum discussions where drivers could talk through any EV-related challenges they have faced.

“Once you get the initial ‘buzz’ out of the way, every single person drove better. Especially with some of the performance cars," she said. 

“As a lot of drivers have cards to use to charge up, they realised that if they drove better, they didn’t have to stop as much to charge and the human nature of ‘I don’t have to do this if I don’t have too’ kicked in.

“As long as you go over the basics of regenerative braking and drivers understand the concepts behind it and of the new safety features that come out – we communicate it out.”

Pestell added: “Encourage drivers to turn regenerative braking on. They can turn it down a bit at first but turn it on from day one to get them used to it – it’s good use of an EV.”

He also recommended journey planning and suggested drivers use the online tool ‘A Better Route Planner (ABRP)’, which can pinpoint charge points on any route.

He said: “EVs are all about planning, planning, planning. ABRP is the best tool you’ll ever find as an EV driver. Stopping to charge is a good thing and it creates a good discipline.”

He also discussed considering off-peak charging solutions at home and recommended using the Energy Saving Trust’s guide on smart charging for EVs.

Pestell added: “The exciting trend we are seeing is the wide variety of choice for EVs out there, beyond where we were with fleet policies five years ago. If you’re going EV, it’s pretty much open choice policy now.

“It's not going to be perfect 100% of the time, you are going to get issues and there is going to be inconvenience, but you only have to look at your fleet vehicle off road report.

“We dwell on the odd EV charge point issue, but we’ve been inconvenienced by diesel and petrol cars with their faults for years and just lived with it.”

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