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You have made the move: one, two, five electric vehicles in your fleet. Or you are seriously considering it. The next question is almost always the same: how do you manage charging for a small fleet?
What really changes with electric vehicles is that charging does not happen in a single place. Between the office, home and travel, costs are scattered and paperwork can quickly become heavy if nothing is organised. Large fleets often have processes in place already, but for a small business with a handful of vehicles, things are different. The needs are real and resources are limited, and there are now simple solutions to centralise charging and set up a solution that suits your company.
Key takeaways:
- Charging a small fleet comes down to 3 situations: office, on the road, home.
- The area that gets out of hand fastest is charging on the road (multiple networks, receipts, reimbursements).
- A simple organisation rests on 3 fundamentals: traceability, usage rules, monthly tracking.
- A poorly managed electric fleet can wipe out a large share of the potential savings.
- Solutions such as Chargemap Business provide access to charging, make tracking easier and reduce the administrative workload.
Charging at the office
The first question most companies ask is whether to install charging stations on site. It makes sense: if vehicles are parked at the office, they might as well charge overnight or between jobs.
For a fleet of 1 to 10 vehicles, one or two AC charging stations (7 to 22 kW) are usually enough. Light vehicles do not need fast charging for standard professional use: overnight charging or a few hours of charging covers the vast majority of daily journeys.
What matters is not so much the installed power as monitoring. With a non-connected charging station, you do not know who uses it, how much it costs or whether it works. Choose controllable equipment with a tracking platform, even for just two charging stations.
Good to know: if your fleet is made up of company cars used at home, home charging for employees is a topic in its own right.
Charging on the road: the real blind spot for small fleets
Without a structured solution, charging on the road is often the hardest part to manage for a small fleet.
The driver looks for a charging station, uses one network's app or another, pays with a personal card, then sends you a receipt to reimburse. Multiply that by five drivers and around ten trips a month, and you quickly end up with a heavy administrative workload and costs that are hard to control.
The answer to this problem is the professional charging card (also called a charging pass or badge). In practice, it is an RFID card or a digital solution that gives the driver access to public charging stations on many networks, with centralised billing for the company.
With the Business Chargemap Pass, you get coverage of more than 2,000 compatible networks in France and Europe. Whether your drivers travel within their usual area or abroad, they can access the main charging stations without multiplying subscriptions.
Understanding costs
The costs to consider for a small electric fleet are of several kinds:
- Direct charging costs include the electricity consumed on private charging stations (at the office, at home) and the prices charged on public charging stations.
- Indirect costs are often underestimated: time spent managing reimbursements, reconciling expense claims and answering drivers' questions.
- Infrastructure costs cover the installation and maintenance of on-site charging stations.
With a small fleet, it can be tempting to improvise: a personal subscription here, a network card there, and reimbursements on a case-by-case basis. Yet the real cost of this approach often exceeds that of a structured solution.
4 tips for managing your electric fleet
Managing charging for 5 or 10 vehicles does not require a complex organisation. A few simple principles are enough to avoid the usual friction.
1) Assign one card per vehicle. This is essential for traceability. If several people use the same card, you immediately lose the ability to see who charged, when and for how much.
2) Define a clear charging policy. Set a general rule (charge at the office whenever possible) and formalise the procedure on the road (use the card, not a personal card).
3) Centralise tracking. Even with only two vehicles, a dashboard consolidating charging sessions, costs and kilowatt-hours consumed makes all the difference and gives a clear view of the TCO.
4) Plan ahead for long-distance trips. Equip your drivers with a charging card so they can access fast charging networks on motorways.
Chargemap Business offers charging cards covering more than 2,000 charging networks, designed for organisations of all sizes. The Chargemap Pass gives you centralised billing and real-time tracking of charging sessions.
For companies that want to get started without launching a complex project, the Classic and Advanced packages are available directly online.
