The Electric Vehicle (EV) gospel has been preached for years. And finally, with fast technological developments and upcoming EU regulations, it seems EVs will really take off in the upcoming years – both for consumer mobility and business transport. But a lot is still uncertain. For Webfleet Solutions, Europe’s number one in fleet management solutions, having a vision on EV is key in offering the right advice and solutions to its customers. What will be the impact of EVs on the fleet (management) of the future?

To answer this question and define a vision on EV in commercial fleets, we set up an exploratory research project. We deep-dived into research and analysis of available data and elaborate trend reports to build a first understanding of EV developments. Then, we conducted interviews with OEMs, industry experts and EV specialists to test our ideas, enrich our insights and bring them to life with tangible examples. Among the interviewees were professors in the field of mobility and logistics, fleet managers for large FMCG companies and energy providers, to name a few.

We learned that although consumer mobility is rapidly adopting EV as the new solution to sustainable mobility, in commercial logistics there are still many barriers to overcome. Availability of the right solutions, costs, range and adoption mindset are some of the key limitations holding back the mainstream adoption of EV for large commercial fleets. On the other hand, adoption is strongly incentivised by national and European policies, stimulating acceleration of technological development and a new approach to fleet management.