Fleet Vision consultants in high demand for electrification advice

Fleet Vision, the fleet consultancy arm of Fleet Logistics Group, is seeing increased demand from businesses across Europe for electrification advice and EV project planning with pressure increasing on fleet managers to deliver greener, carbon-neutral fleets at minimal extra investment.

The growing demand, says Fleet Vision, is being driven top-down by management wanting to complete carbon-neutral projects within an allotted time span, and bottom-up by drivers wanting to reduce their carbon footprints resulting in lower tax bills - and from the side by governments, local authorities and car manufacturers.

Fleet managers are typically caught in the middle and charged with identifying the best route to a greener, ultimately carbon-neutral fleet, but often with little experience in implementing change management projects of this scope.

As a result, the Fleet Vision consultancy is now witnessing high demand for its services and is currently engaged in a number of projects aimed at bringing increased electrification to its client fleets.

Fleet Vision senior consultant Wim Buzzi (left) said: ”We see an increase in statements from CEOs within companies that want to be carbon-neutral by 2030, for example, with a fully electric fleet in that time frame. However, they often lack the operational plan of how to achieve that objective and the resources involved to get there.

“Meanwhile, drivers want to take advantage of some of the tax incentives that European governments are offering for EVs by selecting cleaner vehicles. The UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium are clear examples of this.

“Caught in the middle of this drive towards electrification is the fleet manager who is charged with delivering on both objectives, and putting together the appropriate fleet policy and vehicle choice list that will deliver the goal while keeping as budget-neutral as possible. We are systematically being called on to help with that process,” he said.

Under its Electrification Project Methodology, Fleet Vision consultants follow a number of steps to a partially or fully electric fleet - as well identifying the various stages in between from strategy to roll-out.

The first step is to thoroughly assess all current fleet data and review current car policies at both an international and local level to establish a baseline. As this may involve fleets in different countries and in different parts of the world, this needs to be a rigorous process.

“Often we find that fleet reality is very different to the information we are being given in terms of mileage, contract lengths and vehicles operated. There is a real need for transparency to be effective in electrification. This is where our data expertise from global reporting solutions comes in handy,” said Geert Van Boxelaer, who coordinates reporting services of Fleet Vision.

The next step involves preparing a detailed profiling and segmentation of all drivers on the fleet in terms of mileages driven and job need required; the identification of key car levels per country and of the reference cars at each car level of the fleet policy, along with all the manufacturer discounts. All of these criteria then need to be agreed with the client.

At the same time, the Fleet Vision consultant prepares a full TCO (Total Costs of Ownership) baseline for each country in the fleet, showing the actual costs associated with running the current mix of vehicles to give an accurate picture of the true fleet running costs.

Once this has also been agreed with the client, the next step is to identify and configure new reference cars at each level and for each type of need. The needs of drivers are used to create profiles, to ensure proposed vehicles meet both their expectations and those of the business.

There then follows an RFQ (request for quotation) process with quotations sought from at least two leasing companies in each country for the new fleet mix. Once all the quotations have been received, these are consolidated into the database and a new fleet TCO calculated.

This is then completed with the additional investment required to electrify the fleet, the full taxation impacts and the estimated energy cost for each type of powertrain involved.

The next stage of the process is to model a series of what-if scenarios and to help in this regard, Fleet Vision consultants use TCMPlus, a new fleet and mobility modelling and forecasting tool which takes into account the multi-modal forms of employee mobility now available to companies.

The new tool allows the modelling of different fuel types for vehicles, including petrol, diesel, CNG or LPG, EVs, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and to model any desired change within the existing fleet mix.

And it also allows the modelling of scenarios in which vehicles may be replaced with different types of mobility, such as increased use of trains, buses and other forms of transport.

“From this modelling, we are able to provide the client with a number of possible scenarios, from the fastest route to electrification, to a more considered approach with gradual replacement of vehicles, to a worst case scenario when no changes are made at all.

“The capability of real-time adjustment and visualization of the projected cost is an absolute must to engage with stakeholders centrally within the client’s headquarters or locally with country management teams,” said Thibault Alleyn, who heads Fleet Vision (right).

An optimal scenario is always modelled with an optimum powertrain share per country, and the costs of each new scenario compared to the baseline TCO arrived at earlier in the process. The impacts of future taxation, charging aspects, emissions legislation and manufacturer developments are also factored in, thanks to the expertise of Fleet Vision consultants.

Finally, a roll-out plan is produced, tailored for each client, which ensures the proper level of attention to change management and ultimately buy-in to make things happen.

Country implementations are then either supported by the Fleet Vision consultancy, or by Fleet Logistics as part of an outsourced fleet management solution. Whichever option is preferred by fleet operators, the time to act is now, says Fleet Vision.

If you wish to find out how Fleet Vision can help you down an electrification route for your fleet, please contact Thibault Alleyn at +32 475 705 755 or email talleyn@fleetvision.biz