A good EV for a small business vs an EV fleet for a larger business?

[davidtheweb]

I wanted to tap the experiences that others have had with maintaining a small (3 to 5) EV fleet, vs possibly some experiences with those an order of magnitude longer.

What experience have been had with manufacturers honoring warranties, with overall durability, etc?

 

[KT421]

Warranty repair seems more dependent on dealer than brand, excepting things like Tesla where they are one and the same.

What class of vehicle are you looking for? Big trucks, people movers? How many miles would a vehicle drive in an average day?

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

My employer is supposed to be buying a few F-150 Lightnings in the new FY. I'd be interested in hearing about experiences as well.

 

[davidtheweb]

For the discussion, I suppose any class of vehicle equal to or under an F-750 would do. Semi trucks are probably beyond what most would experience here? Maybe?

 

[poochyena]

Honoring warranties is one thing, but actually getting the vehicles serviced is another. You'd want to make sure the vehicles can actually be serviced in your area, unless you are ok taking it 100+ miles away to the nearest service center.

 

[SandyTech]

We were looking at possibly picking up a couple F-150 Lightning pickups to replace some older regular F-150s. One of the things that stopped us wasn't so much getting it serviced, there are 3 Ford dealerships reasonably close that all service Ford's EVs, as it was what would happen to the warranty if we used it commercially.

 

[iPilot05]

One of the things that stopped us wasn't so much getting it serviced, there are 3 Ford dealerships reasonably close that all service Ford's EVs, as it was what would happen to the warranty if we used it commercially.

Ford made a lot of noise about the lightning as a fleet vehicle when it was launched. Including a low end trim just for that. Plus they have extensive experience in fleet sales. The dealer in my town has a separate building and side of the lot specifically set aside for stuff like that. I’d be shocked if service and warranty can’t be set up accordingly.

 

[SandyTech]

Right, I remember that which is why I went to talk to them but the commercial team at the two dealers I went to wanted nothing to do with selling them. They were also around $80k before upfitting at the time and that would have killed it then and there.

 

[KT421]

I know Electrify America is using EV Silverados as fleet vehicles; I've seen a couple at charging stations being serviced.

Rivians are also a likely candidate for fleet vehicles, they clearly do fleet sales for the box-on-wheels delivery van, and without the dealership model you're not subject to "I don't wanna sell EVs" dealers, but I don't know how you would get service if you needed it.

That's all assuming that you're looking for a pickup truck for your vehicle fleet. If you just need to move people around instead of tools/materials, there's a wide selection of passenger cars that are going to be easier on the budget.

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Right, I remember that which is why I went to talk to them but the commercial team at the two dealers I went to wanted nothing to do with selling them. They were also around $80k before upfitting at the time and that would have killed it then and there.

Might not be a bad idea to let Corporate know about it and get clarification directly from them about warranties and fleet use.

I guess I need to go talk to our Fleet guys and see if they've talked to a dealer yet - and if so, if they're getting any pushback like you did. I know that Lightning is in the budget for the new FY, but I'm not directly involved.

 

[w00key]

Here as long as you buy from the guys selling vans since forever, it seems to be fine, not remarkable. Toyota honors their 10 years and 200000 km warranty on their Proace cargo vans too, so that's one way to not worry about issues until it's written off. You usually hit the km limit at year 3 to 5, and by then there will be mechanical issues. Vans have a hard life. Loaded heavy, driven hard.

We're looking at replacing 2 diesels soonish, phased out by zero emission zone but also mechanical issues once in a while with drivetrain, (sliding)doors etc. One is annoying, refrigerated truck x battery power was sucky until very recently.

 

[Korov]

For the discussion, I suppose any class of vehicle equal to or under an F-750 would do. Semi trucks are probably beyond what most would experience here? Maybe?

My employer runs a sizable fleet of Freightliner eCascadias. I'm not directly involved in that pilot, but have talked with those who are. I've heard very few complaints about the trucks themselves.

Building out the charging infrastructure was another matter entirely and set the whole effort back over a year. Probably not an issue for 3-5 vehicles at any kind of industrial location, but something to be aware of.

 

[flyingember]

My employer runs a sizable fleet of Freightliner eCascadias. I'm not directly involved in that pilot, but have talked with those who are. I've heard very few complaints about the trucks themselves.

Building out the charging infrastructure was another matter entirely and set the whole effort back over a year. Probably not an issue for 3-5 vehicles at any kind of industrial location, but something to be aware of.

charging is going to be harder for a smaller businesses.

anyone looking for a truck or van for work is of course going to want to carry supplies, gear in it. you're talking about losing about half your range to be able to tow at full capacity and maybe a quarter to fill the bed or back with weight. The stories coming out of the cybertruck shows just how important towing range is for a vehicle that tows. there's so many stories of chargers that don't work with a trailer at this point

you're a worker running around in a an electric van fully loaded you take a 160mile range e-transit down 25% to about 120 miles. The Rivian vans Amazon uses is 150 miles. if you go from a yard to a job and back that could work, but you either need to limit your distance to about 40 miles away, not much in a city, or plan to stop and charge at the end of the day. for a vehicle going from A to B to C you have to carefully plan your distances around charging.

I expect that the companies who successfully implement electric vehicles can control the distance with software defined routes, can afford to setup multiple bases around a city (like having a small warehouse 40 miles away you can restock and charge at), or takes the time to setup fast charging partnerships with other businesses so they can use them on the go.

and your cost goes way up with electric to daytime fast charge since that's when the local electric company will want the most money

you also have to account for temperature range loss. you lose 10-30% of the range to winter and most fleet vehicles sit outside constantly. So imagine needing double the vehicles or to charge much more often 1/4 of the year. they also lose 2-5% in the heat.

 

[Korov]

Yeah, there are a lot of growing pains around charging.

We use them on local runs, which you'd think would be an ideal use case for electric. And it is. But traditional trucks on that account run 24x7 except for maintenance. Electric needs downtime to charge, so you need more of them right off the bat.

And then scheduling charging is a whole new problem. Early AM when rates are cheap is the busiest time on this account. Early evening when rates are high is the slowest. CA peak rates rival diesel fuel cost-per-mile and the trucks are already more expensive, so charging at peak rates makes it a non-starter on cost competitiveness.

Electric is the future, but there is a learning curve.

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Yeah, there are a lot of growing pains around charging.

We use them on local runs, which you'd think would be an ideal use case for electric. And it is. But traditional trucks on that account run 24x7 except for maintenance. Electric needs downtime to charge, so you need more of them right off the bat.

Can they charge at the loading dock while loading/unloading or something similar? From a battery perspective, 30 minutes to refill 0-80% shouldn't be a challenge.

 

[Oddabe19]

I think where electric fleet vehicles will end up being the most useful is government, specifically local and some state. I think Ford missed their chance with a slower and smaller battery in the F150 Lightning, one that's say 100-150miles. With a decent trade-in of ICEs to Ford, they wouldn't cost taxpayers anymore then a new ICE vehicle.

I'm thinking inspectors; utilities; school/university maintenance, etc... The ones that putz around a county or township, not really even hitting 100 miles/day. They work 8:30-4, which leaves a ton of time for charging without impact to grid. If they need a quick charge, they're never more then a few miles from anything, certainly not a township building.

I think they'd be the prime 'test' for fleet electric and a good phase in. Those short trips are tough on vehicles too. If they're proven there, that could be a good model and incentive for other electric fleet styles (i.e. Transits and Sprinters) for smaller businesses.

 

[Korov]

Can they charge at the loading dock while loading/unloading or something similar? From a battery perspective, 30 minutes to refill 0-80% shouldn't be a challenge.

In theory, sure, but that is not really the way the industry operates today.

First, most large carriers will position empty trailers at customer locations for the customer to load. Drivers drop the full one, pick up an empty, and are on their way. Smaller customers....or smaller/one-man carriers....you'll more often back into the dock and wait while you're loaded (live load). But that isn't the target market for electrification.

Second, in most cases the customer owns the loading dock, not the carrier. Getting them to build chargers to the dock would be a challenge. Lots of major power retrofits to old facilities for no direct benefit to the bottom line until electrification takes off.

In my example, we're shuttling shipping containers from the port to the rail head. Other than parking under a crane for a few minutes on each end, there isn't much time standing still.

 

[SandyTech]

For us, EVs would be a bit easier to keep charged as they all report back to the depot every night for 10-12 hours. Equally I'm not sure what weighing them down with 500-600 pounds of tools, cables, ladders, spares and whatever the racking system would weigh might do to their operating range. Also, keeping them charged in the event of a hurricane would be problematic too. I've got the generator overhead but the additional fuel burn would probably require we install additional bulk fuel storage which would be a headache and a half.

 

[Quarthinos]

For us, EVs would be a bit easier to keep charged as they all report back to the depot every night for 10-12 hours. Equally I'm not sure what weighing them down with 500-600 pounds of tools, cables, ladders, spares and whatever the racking system would weigh might do to their operating range. Also, keeping them charged in the event of a hurricane would be problematic too. I've got the generator overhead but the additional fuel burn would probably require we install additional bulk fuel storage which would be a headache and a half.

Has FL noticed that EVs are the future and started doing any kind of state-wide planning for how that's going to work wrt hurricanes and gov't owned EVs? Maybe you can get your localish gov't to help you so they have data for their eventual EV fleet? (Being that I used to live in FL, I doubt it, but I can dream.)

 

[SandyTech]

Has FL noticed that EVs are the future and started doing any kind of state-wide planning for how that's going to work wrt hurricanes and gov't owned EVs? Maybe you can get your localish gov't to help you so they have data for their eventual EV fleet? (Being that I used to live in FL, I doubt it, but I can dream.)

Not at the state level, though some municipalities are making moves in that direction. About a year ago, the local sheriff's office bought a mix of Model 3s and Model Ys and installed chargers at all the substations for a pilot program. They aren't used as patrol vehicles but the civil and community service divisions use them and (according to their numbers at least) are projected to save the sheriff's office something like 50% on fuel compared to the various pickups, sedans and SUVs used by those divisions.

 

[KT421]

For us, EVs would be a bit easier to keep charged as they all report back to the depot every night for 10-12 hours. Equally I'm not sure what weighing them down with 500-600 pounds of tools, cables, ladders, spares and whatever the racking system would weigh might do to their operating range. Also, keeping them charged in the event of a hurricane would be problematic too. I've got the generator overhead but the additional fuel burn would probably require we install additional bulk fuel storage which would be a headache and a half.

In my experience with a passenger vehicle, loading it down with 500lbs of people+stuff didn't impact range nearly as much as putting a roof box on the top messing with the aerodynamics. A pickup has shite aero to start with so slapping a ladder on the roof's not going to change much.

The putz-around-town service vehicle is perfect, because outside of roof boxes and cold weather, the next big range killer is going fast on the freeway. If you're mostly sticking to 40mph roads as you flit back and forth across town, you'll get much better than the EPA range. Plus the return to the depot every night for a full charge.

 

[flyingember]

In theory, sure, but that is not really the way the industry operates today.

First, most large carriers will position empty trailers at customer locations for the customer to load. Drivers drop the full one, pick up an empty, and are on their way. Smaller customers....or smaller/one-man carriers....you'll more often back into the dock and wait while you're loaded (live load). But that isn't the target market for electrification.

Second, in most cases the customer owns the loading dock, not the carrier. Getting them to build chargers to the dock would be a challenge. Lots of major power retrofits to old facilities for no direct benefit to the bottom line until electrification takes off.

In my example, we're shuttling shipping containers from the port to the rail head. Other than parking under a crane for a few minutes on each end, there isn't much time standing still.

I think the business use case for big trucks is going to require battery swaps and vehicles will need to be designed to work for this. Make it modular where you can add and remove in multiples to reduce vehicle weight and increase range. .

The idea would be a swap takes as long as refueling does today.

It's not realistic to put megawatt charging everywhere large trucks go across the country and charge during the day. The electrical backbone alone would be a massive lift. Overnight is just as hard, if you need a megawatt per 5 trucks some places would need dozens of megawatts of power capacity.

Design the system so a swap system can slow charge and fast charge based on need at the time, pulling down less power or time shifting demand to overnight. It also will be far more compact and easier to find space for. Have it be a reservation system where you pay to have a battery waiting, your time of arrival is shared with the software, and the system handles charging within scheduled demand.

Could even sell this as a shared service. Freightliner could build out swapping stations across the country including at your own facility so you can own, lease or buy access to the network. You can turn on shared use so other companies get access and your cost is lower. A large warehouse owner can thus run a battery swap system themselves and it's available for all users. If you show up to pickup a load you can swing by and get a new battery the same way one would fuel up

 

[MilleniX]

There's an interesting interaction between charging needs and potential autonomy: Current tractors with a single driver are guaranteed to sit idle 10+ hours per day, because of mandatory rest. A self-driving truck doesn't need rest, and so down time to charge becomes a point of expense to optimize. So, maybe they're more likely to pair up with battery swapping infrastructure?