You know how much your public charging bill is, but do you know whether it is justified?
As fleets go electric, finance departments' expectations have changed: it is no longer just a matter of knowing what charging costs, but of knowing whether that cost is the right price. Yet public charging remains the least transparent item in the budget: hundreds of sessions, dozens of networks and prices that vary from one operator to the next. At the end of the month, you have a total that you then need to justify to management.
To answer that question, you need two things: a detailed view of your charging and a benchmark to put it in context.
Why public charging is hard to analyse
Charging at home or on site follows regular patterns. Public charging, on the other hand, depends on job sites, rounds and client meetings. Your employees charge wherever their day takes them, with no visibility of the company's charging budget. Naturally, they choose the most convenient charging station, at a motorway service area or near a restaurant, and above all the fastest one, so they can get back on the road quickly. Yet fast chargers are often the ones with the highest prices.
As a result, the items that weigh most on your budget often remain hidden:
- expensive networks, used for only a handful of sessions;
- weekend charging, outside expected usage;
- employees who drive long distances with no charging point at home and rely entirely on public charging.
To identify these costs, the first step is to bring your data together. You probably already use several tools: fleet management, reporting, charging cards. But do they communicate with each other? If not, data has to be exported, cross-checked and consolidated manually, every month.
An amount alone does not tell you whether a cost is high
Take a fleet that pays an average of €0.47 per kWh for public charging. Is that high? Without a point of comparison, there is no way to tell: the figure exists, but it does not help you decide.
A benchmark is what gives it meaning: the cost per kWh of comparable fleets over the same period. It shows whether your fleet is in line with the norm or above it, and lets you measure the gap. For example, €0.47 is the average price observed among Chargemap Business customers. A small gap does not necessarily justify changing habits; a large gap, however, calls for action.
Three questions to ask your charging data
1. Which networks weigh most on your budget?
A network can account for a large share of the bill while being used for only a few sessions. Comparing each network's share of total cost with its share of sessions highlights these gaps, and shows the networks where a simple guideline may be enough.
2. Where are costs concentrated in your fleet?
Driver, vehicle, billing entity: an overall view hides the differences. An employee who travels every day and one who mostly charges at home do not have the same needs. A ranking helps you identify the employees to talk to, so you understand their usage before making any decision.
3. Are your charging rules being followed?
Charging policy, recommended network, spending cap: you still need to check that these rules are followed in practice. Comparing the periods before and after they were introduced lets you measure their effect and adjust them if needed.
The levers for action are often already in place. What is missing is a clear reading of the data: without it, it is hard to know which ones to use, and with what effect.
Insights: your public charging read, benchmarked and managed
That is what Insights, the new Chargemap Business feature, makes possible. All of your fleet's public charging is brought together in a single tab, with indicators already calculated, for the scope and period of your choice.
Read. Average price per kWh, total cost, energy delivered, session success rate, rankings by network, driver, vehicle and billing entity: your data is in one place, with no need to cross-check several tools.
Benchmark. Your cost per kWh is compared with the median of fleets managed by Chargemap Business over the same period, based on aggregated and anonymised data. You present management with a figure in context, not just a total.
Act. Budgets, alert thresholds and charging rules are managed from the same page. You then measure the effect of each guideline: your charging policy sets the rules, Insights shows whether they work.
Insights is included in the Chargemap Business Enterprise package. It currently covers public charging; home and on-site charging will be added soon.
Three misconceptions to set straight
“Ranking drivers means penalising them.” Ranking is first and foremost a way to understand where costs are concentrated and to open a dialogue with the employees concerned.
“To reduce the bill, you have to block networks.” An alert, a budget or a conversation with the employee is often enough. Blocking remains an option, to be reserved for situations where it is justified for your organisation.
“An overall analysis of the fleet is enough.” An average combines very different usage patterns. It is the breakdown by network, driver and billing entity that shows where to act.
From total cost to the right price
Knowing the amount of your charging bill is no longer enough. With Insights, you know whether you are paying the right price, and which networks to act on. Request a demo to discover Insights.
