Public EV charging can be a key part of your fleet electrification strategy. We explore why you may want a Paua electric fuel card for your electric fleet.

Paua identifies seven reasons to use public EV charging

Public electric vehicle charging is not seen as the first thing that a fleet manager does when they consider their fleet electrification strategy. Depot charging and home charging are often considered first. A home EV charger represents an obvious step (but does come with certain complexity around billing and tax management).

Here we assess the top 7 reasons that public charging should be part of your electric car or electric van charging strategy. We help you resolve the electric vs petrol car debate with a better EV charging solution

If you are interested in the smartest electric fuel card on the market our latest offers are here. We believe that Paua’s electric fuel card solution is the best EV app in the UK for the fleets

You get the driver app, an RFID card for EV charging in the UK (some call it an electric car chargepass or EV charge card) and gives you access to market leading chargepoints such as Fastned UK, Mer EV charging and Osprey Charging stations.

We continue to engage other popular chargepoint network such as BP Pulse (formerly the Polar network or Polar charge card), Gridserve with the electric highway and electric forecourt, Instavolt and others to ensure that we can integrate these networks as soon as they are able to become open to others.

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1. It will be cheaper than home and depot charging

This is a complex and nuanced argument so we will cover this in more detail in another post.

It is important to remember that when you install an electric charging point in a depot or a drivers home that this is not done for free. There is a capital cost that has to be considered in the “total cost of charging”. This capital cost can only be recovered on one vehicle using that chargepoint. This means that it is higher than for a shared public charging point.

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2. It saves you time

Depot charging is great when your fleet is naturally return to depot. But drivers who have to now “go” to the depot in order to charge are wasting time at a location that they would not naturally be at.

We have come across this case study. Electric vans return to a depot for an electric charge when they wouldn’t have done so before.

An all-digital charging solution with integrated maps in the driver app contains information on the status of an electric vehicle charger; “available”, “broken” or “in-use”. This avoids drivers going to the wrong location. The EV charge app saves time enabling drivers to only go to an available charger.

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3. You can select vehicles with smaller batteries

Range anxiety is real.

Therefore there is a tendency to select a vehicle that has the largest possible battery. However this costs you more money. Selecting a van with a smaller battery enables a cheaper purchase. But you need to have confidence that you can access charging enroute to support any longer journeys you conduct.

Our electric vehicle charge app makes it easy to find networks, to give drivers confidence they can charge on the network and that the bill will be paid by the fleet manager.

We make EV Easy. We keep your electric fleet on the road.

4. You can electrify your fleet faster

Home and Depot charging face constraints. “45% of fleet drivers will not be able to charge at home as they don’t have access to off-street parking”, according to Fleets Ahead PwC report. Many do not want to give the driveway up for a company vehicle. And not everyone wants to pay for a chargepoint installed at their house and not all fleets will pay (what happens when the driver moves?).

Depot charging can be constrained by available space and more often the significant costs associated with digging up the car park or installing a new grid connection.

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5. Your drivers have a more familiar experience

With over 75 charging networks in the UK there can be a lot of variance between each, app, card, network, charger and location. This can confuse drivers.

The Paua electric fuel card experience presents a single app to find charging, a single option to access thousands of chargers and a single bill for the fleet manger. Importantly the driver has the same experience each time enabling them to gain familiarity and confidence with charging on the highway.

Our network of electric vehicle chargepoints increases regularly as our partners deploy chargepoints and we add more networks to our electric car charging app. Rely on brands such as Osprey EV charging, Fastned UK, Mer EV charging, Char.gy, Allego and others.

6. Access chargepoints wherever you go

Paua’s network of electric vehicle connectors across the country increases almost daily. Find our latest chargepoint network here or find live status directly in the app.

Our network covers most of the UK with strong coverage of electric vehicle charging down the M3 corridor and electric vehicle charging on the south coast from Brighton to Bournemouth provided by Osprey charging stations and Mer EV in particular. The North East is the stronghold of both Mer and Fastned rapid charging complimented by Osprey. And for those in London Char.gy has a stronghold and new networks from ESB and others will be available soon.

We are your electric car charging company.

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7. Prices excluding VAT through a single bill

Paua is able to provide you with a VAT bill for your public electric vehicle charging. This simple solution ensures that your business can recover 20% VAT . This saves you immediately.

Recovering VAT on home energy bills is much more complex. So what was a 40p/kWh charge on a rapid charger should now be considered to be a 33p/kWh charge in public. With home energy bills on the increase this is worth watching. Maybe public charging is the best energy supplier for electric cars?

You can also ensure that with an accurate record of charge events that your drivers no longer have to be out of pocket on the Governments 5p/mile Advisory Electricity Rate. Instead the business pays for their charging and the drivers can gain confidence to charge in public.