Fleet home charging: what fleet managers need to know

Home chargers don’t tell the whole story

Many organisations build their charging strategy around hardware. Give every employee a home charger, and all the data should be available automatically. But that approach doesn’t work for everyone.

Some employees live in an apartment or don’t have their own driveway. Others already have a charger or use a standard socket. What happens if someone moves home while they have the company car? Or is still driving a vehicle from a previous employer?

A fleet policy built around one type of home charger can quickly become difficult to manage. The starting point should be reliable data on every charging session, whatever charger your employees use.

Five questions to ask when planning your charging policy

1. Do you know where your fleet charges?

To make sense of a charging cost, you need to know where it happened. Home, workplace and public charging each come with different costs and may need to be processed differently. A central overview helps you keep those costs separate and see what’s going on.

2. Can you reimburse home charging accurately?

Employees who charge at home often pay for the electricity themselves first. You then need to work out how much to reimburse. That takes reliable information on:

• How much energy was charged.
• Which vehicle was charged.
• Where the charging took place.
• Which rate applies.
• Which period the reimbursement covers.

Without automatic recording, that quickly becomes extra work for HR, finance and fleet management.

3. Can you keep track of charging behaviour?

Some charging sessions cost more than others. An employee might choose an expensive public fast charger when they could have charged at home.

Your charging policy needs to do more than set out what’s allowed. You also need to check whether it’s being followed. Think rules on public charging networks, charging budgets, fast charging and maximum energy consumption.

4. Can you allocate costs to the right entity?

In larger companies, charging costs may need to be allocated to different drivers, vehicles, departments, cost centres, legal entities or countries.

A solution that only shows the total charging bill won’t give you the control you need.

5. Can your process grow with your fleet?

A process that works for ten vehicles won’t necessarily work for a hundred or a thousand. As your fleet grows, you don’t want to keep installing chargers, managing new suppliers, combining separate spreadsheets or checking everything manually. Then there are all the separate reimbursement processes to set up.

Your charging strategy needs to account for growth from day one.

Start with vehicle data

Electric cars already record key charging information: location, charging times, energy consumption and mileage.

Getting that data directly from the car makes your charging strategy less dependent on the hardware at an employee’s home.

Employees can charge in a way that suits their situation. You still get the information you need to calculate costs, check compliance with your charging policy and create reports.

EEVEE Mobility uses vehicle data to collect and organise charging activity by vehicle, driver, location and energy consumption.

Make room for different charging setups

Home chargers still make sense in plenty of situations. They’re convenient and give employees with a suitable parking space a good charging experience. With EEVEE Mobility, you have more flexibility in how you build your fleet strategy.

A flexible approach combines:

• Home chargers where they add value.
• Vehicle data for a complete overview.
• Automatic processing of home charging costs.
• Clear rules for public charging.
• Reporting for fleet management, HR and finance.

That keeps your charging policy from depending entirely on one type of installation.

What matters when managing fleet home charging?

Managing home charging means having visibility, control and a process that can grow with your fleet. Vehicle data gives employees the flexibility to charge in a way that works for them, while fleet managers stay in control of costs, reimbursements and charging policy.

EEVEE Mobility helps your company manage home charging, public charging sessions and charging costs from one platform.

Want to make home charging easier for your fleet? Book a free demo with EEVEE Mobility.