EV Charging for Commercial Fleets

Electricity use became a common practice among commercial vehicle fleet owners and their commercial vehicle fleets to reduce pollution and expenses. Electric vehicle technology has evolved since 2024-25 from limited pilot testing to becoming embraced by all major commercial fleets. Global electric car sales exceeded roughly 17 million during 2024, with the total global electric passenger vehicle fleet passing tens of millions — a growth dynamic that is now rapidly transferring to medium- and heavy-duty fleets.

This roadmap covers fleet types, charging strategies (depot vs on-route), smart scheduling & load balancing, battery health and predictive maintenance, and policy incentives (US & UK) — all with the latest industry numbers and applied suggestions.

1) Why fleets – now?

• A total addressable market: the global market for fleet electrification is already measured in the tens of billions of dollars and expected to grow rapidly (market projections suggest the fleet electrification market will reach near USD 93B by 2024 and grow significantly thereafter, toward 2030).
• Fleet operators can easily determine fleet lifetime cost advantages for EV trucks / buses, even considering higher upfront costs: studies claim lifetime savings for some heavy vehicles have been measured in the range of 10-26% once fuels + maintenance are included.
  

2) Fleet Types and their charging needs

• Logistics (last-mile delivery vans): most usually predictable routes and return to a depot nightly – this is ideal for overnight depot charging and V2G-ready strategies. 
• Delivery & courier (urban): charging opportunity and (potentially) fast depot-top-ups may be needed for multi-shift operations. 
• Corporate fleets/service vehicles: tend to have shorter driving distances each day, allowing fleet operators to charge electric corporate service vehicles throughout their workdays with little downtime. 
• Transit & heavy-duty (buses, trucks): may have both depot charging overnight and potential charging points located along the routes. Both charging methods will be determined by duty cycle requirements.

Analysis of duty cycle is the single most important design input; determine each vehicle’s daily miles, dwell times and peak-departure requirements before deciding charger(s) power and site architecture.

3) Depot Charging vs. On-Route (Opportunity) Charging – Choose by Use Case

• Depot Charging (Overnight / Distributed DC): Less operational complexity, centralises the power upgrades at one site, thus often less expensive per delivered kWh, and based on industry research, approximately 83% of medium/heavy (Class 3 – 8) use cases can be accommodated with depot charging if fleet duty cycles and smart scheduling are implemented. Depot charging is the default choice for fleet electrification projects.
• On-route / Opportunity Charging (Pantograph, Fast/Ultra-Fast DC): Used to fulfill use cases where high availability or extended range is required (e.g. long-length route buses or trucks intently running an intercity route). Opportunity charging reduces battery size while increasing site infrastructure complexity and peak power at the location.
• Hybrid: Many transit systems are using depot charging, as well as charging the vehicle in the middle of the route at locations along the route, to minimise battery capacity and overall cost of ownership.

Design Tradeoffs: A depot charging site minimises the upgrades needed for the public-grid network but may need large upgrades locally (transformers, switchgear, megawatt sites). On-route chargers create grid demand across greater distances and add complexity in thoughtfully siting the chargers and agreeing to a charging network.

4) Intelligent scheduling & load balancing – expanding your electrical grid connection

The key to controlling your energy costs in a grid-friendly way is to implement a Charging Management System (CMS) that can:

• Dynamic load balancing across chargers to keep your sites’ peak demand under control and reduce costs associated with utility upgrades.
• Time-of-Use (TOU) optimisation, which displaces high-energy demand charging with the least costly tariff windows and utilises the on-site energy storage/solar system.
• Fleet duty optimisation that routes and charges vehicles in a way to balance battery sizes vs charging power.
  Academic and commercial research indicates many advanced policies + (approximate dynamic programming, AI schedulers, etc.) can drastically reduce energy costs in the depot, and re-optimising duty for missed departures.

Practical tip – at the start, define a working energy budget per vehicle per evening and a simple ‘first come’ queuing or scheduling policy, and iteratively look to amend the CMS. Better yet – capture your partner’s real-duty-cycle data, and keep even fewer vehicles in your fleets.

5) Managing Battery Health & Predictive Maintenance – Preserve Your Highest-Valued Asset

• Batteries are by far the largest cost drivers in a fleet, and they are highly susceptible to how they’re charged (charging), temperatures (temperature), and charge rates (charge rate).
• Recent research has provided quantification of the degradation of batteries associated with providing grid services and vehicle-to-grid (V2G), as well as modelling the compensable value of using a battery as a grid service.
• Predictive Maintenance (PdM): Using Fleet Telematics, BMS Telemetry, and AI, PdM can help determine when a vehicle will fail, identify capacity degradation, and allow fleet managers to proactively schedule restoration actions. The PdM segment of the market is quickly expanding due to the increasing number of fleet operators seeking to decrease vehicle downtime and increase battery life.

Operational Recommendations:

1. Record Battery Management System (BMS) parameters for each electric vehicle, including:
   1) State Of Health (SoH);
   2) Internal resistance:
   3) Variation between cells; and
   4) Charge/discharge Capacity Rates (C-rate).
2. Where practical, limit peak charge rates; implement temperature control during charging.
3. Implement PdM algorithms to detect early indicators of cell imbalance and module overheating and recover the next maintenance window; this will lower unscheduled downtime and TCO.

6) Policy & incentives (US & UK) — what fleets can use in 2025

United States

• The policies and incentives in the US create opportunities for fleets to utilize in their operations during the 2025 time frame. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Clean Vehicle Credit (CVC) provide tax incentives for vehicle purchases made by fleets, including commercial vehicles and charging stations. By taking advantage of these tax incentives, many fleets will be able to significantly reduce the initial purchase costs (although the amounts vary depending on the class and eligibility of each vehicle).
  While fleets can obtain tax credits for purchasing charging infrastructure through the IRA/CVC, they may also qualify for tax deductions when making an investment in a charging station under federal/state tax law.
  
• The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) and the bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provide $5 billion of funding for building electric vehicle charging infrastructure along interstate highways and for other locations in the US. Likewise, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is providing additional discretionary funding through state governments and through the New Opportunities for Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program (NOEVI).

United Kingdom

• The UK government offers a variety of financial support, grants, and advisory services for businesses based in the UK to create and expand their charging networks. The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) provides grant funding for both large and small businesses for the installation of charging stations and infrastructure supporting the employees of those businesses. Many of these UK government programs will continue with updated guidance and rolling applications until 2025.

The best approach to take advantage of federal/state grants and tax incentives in conjunction with manufacturer’s incentives is to combine multiple grants/tax incentives and manufacturer incentives to reduce your company’s fleet electrification payback period. Be sure to check with your local programme for specific timelines and application deadlines before designing your site.

7) Data and operator viewpoint

• Market opportunity: The total fleet electrification marketplace is projected to be approximately USD 93.25 billion in 2024 and continuing to grow strongly through 2034.

To Conclude

As additional support from government policies will provide the necessary framework for successful deployment, proven depot solutions exist for most duty cycles, and there is now mature software available for Fleet Scheduling and Predictive Maintenance (PdM) to reduce costs and emissions while implementing Fleet Electrification. To be successful at Fleet Electrification, Fleet Operators must focus on diligent data collection, develop an incentive-driven financing plan (support schemes) and create a stepwise deployment plan using Pilot Programs (to mitigate the risk of making large investments).