After more than a century, the age of the combustion engine in transport is coming to an end.

The UK will phase out new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2035 (in 2030 to be consulted on by the new Labor government), with progressively stricter annual sales targets for zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) in the meantime. Although the new technology offers a wider range of more versatile vehicles for fleets, that ease of this transition depends on a reliable and widespread charging infrastructure, and there are gaps to be filled.

The UK already has one of the most mature public charging networks in Europe, with more than 71,000 units in 36,000 locations at the end of October 2024, according to Zap-Map, and is under pressure to evolve.

Quality and quantity in focus

The government has set a target of 300,000 by the end of the decade to keep the country’s growing fleet of electric vehicles moving, and from November 2024 charging point operators (CPOs) will also be fined if they fail to meet standards strict customer service. These include achieving 99% uptime while offering transparent pricing, staffed helplines and adding contactless payments for new 8kW-plus units and all existing fast chargers over 50kW. Roaming will be mandatory a year later.

Fleets’ experiences with the current infrastructure have been mixed. As part of Sustainable Mobility Week, Fleet News and Ayvens surveyed 252 fleet decision makers with responsibility for 250 or more vehicles, to discover how they engage in sustainability and what it means for their operation. While the majority of respondents (86%) rated local charging and alternative fuel infrastructure as “good” or “excellent”, more than a third (36%) said it was one of the biggest barriers to their EV transition .

Among fleets dealing with local infrastructure, there were some strong trends towards wider operational issues. Decision makers who said charging slowed their electrification plans were more likely to report an increase in operating costs as a result of their sustainability strategy (41%) than the overall average (37%).

They were also more likely to raise concerns about inefficient use of resources (41%) and delayed operations (36%) than the sample as a whole (32% and 32%, respectively). This could reflect reliance on more expensive public chargers and the need to account for downtime or diversions in driver shifts.

The need for flexible charging

Survey responses also suggested that public charging is not keeping pace with an increasingly diverse electric vehicle fleet. Businesses with commercial vehicles and commercial vehicles in fleet were considerably more likely to say that charging is maintaining their electrification strategy (at 40% and 45% respectively) than the survey as a whole (36%).

This is a recognized problem among industry bodies. BVRLA’s The Zero Emission Van Plan required CPOs to offer larger loading spaces for commercial vehicles, with opportunities to pre-book and use a single form of payment such as a fuel card. Meanwhile, the £100m Electric Freightway consortium, led by CPO Gridserve, is developing a network of lorry stops, service areas and depot loading locations designed specifically for electric lorries and vans.

Organizations lucky enough to have their own warehouses or parking lots can already mitigate some of these inefficiencies. Business electricity rates are typically much cheaper per kWh than using public grids and there is an appetite for sharing. A recent survey by the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) found six out of ten van fleets were willing to share their charging infrastructure with other operators and the organization develops a digital platform to process those transactions.

EV chargers could also be integrated into a site’s energy management ecosystem – including renewables. Of survey respondents, almost half (46%) who said they use electric vehicles to meet environmental commitments added that they have invested in renewable energy generation (such as solar panels) or tariffs. Within the same demographic, 44% plan to do so in the future.

Return on investment

There is still government support available to install some of this infrastructure. The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) offers funding of up to £350 (or 75%) per socket towards fitting and installation costs, so units that can charge two vehicles at once qualify twice. Employees are also exempt from paying benefit-in-kind if they use tax at work, even if they are a passenger in the vehicle and the energy is not for business travel.

However, the unique advantage of electric vehicles is the ability to “fuel up” at home – where it is most convenient for drivers and cheapest for fleets. Grant funding has ended, but drivers in flats or rented accommodation and homeowners with no off-street parking can claim £350 (or up to 75%) towards a charging point, while employer-funded installations are exempt benefits in kind.

Operators could quickly recoup that investment; Ofgem’s latest capped home energy tariffs are more than three times cheaper than the fastest chargers, while charging overnight using a low off-peak tariff could be a third cheaper again. Connectivity is also mandatory for all new home and workplace chargers, which can make them easier to integrate with automated repayment solutions alongside the use of public chargers.

AA is facing these challenges head-on as it reduces its reliance on diesel vehicles. Simon Unngless, the organisation’s commercial group fleet manager, says most alternatives are limited by infrastructure availability, but some of the resulting operational issues are unique to electric vehicles. They can affect the business case for their use.

“Excluding productivity and assuming you can charge at home, then the whole life cost is probably comparable if not cheaper than diesel. If you put productivity into the equation, then unfortunately electric vehicles become more expensive because you have to have some time for charging,” he explains.

“About 30-35% of our patrols have driveways. We’ve called on volunteers where we can install a home charger and hold their hand through the process – making sure they’re part of the journey, as are stakeholders for workforce representation, unions, etc. The challenge comes when there are no access routes left, which is why we are looking at alternative ways of loading the vans. This either affects productivity during working time, as drivers have to charge before a shift or at the end of a shift, or we have an alternative to a wallbox.”