The Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) is creating a new guide that aims to provide the “definitive picture” on service, maintenance and repair (SMR) costs for fully electric cars and vans versus their internal combustion engine (ICE) equivalents.

The AFP has recruited an independent consultant to lead the research and produce initial results by the end of September

It’s appointed an independent consultant to lead the research as soon as possible and produce initial results by the end of September.

While many in the fleet industry say that EV SMR will be substantially cheaper than petrol and diesel cars and vans, the AFP said much of the current information was incomplete, inconsistent or contradictory due to a lack of real-world data.

Paul Hollick, chair at the AFP, said the new project will “cut through the noise” to provide something as close as possible to a conclusive guide.

“Various sources have been issuing what you might call ‘work-in-progress’ SMR data over the last year or more, providing a snapshot picture of their experiences with EVs but it has been difficult to build a consistent picture. Some are reporting that SMR profiles are cheaper than ICE vehicles, as expected, but others have seen a more complex picture across different models and types of vehicle, especially when it comes to the wear and prices of EV tyres.

“This is problematic for fleets because it means that they don’t really have access to information that can show whether what they are spending on EV SMR is broadly consistent with what is being seen across the rest of the fleet sector. They have no way of knowing whether their managerial performance is good, bad or indifferent, and therefore no credible route to benchmarking or developing best practice.”

He added that many fleets were keen to tackle these issues to decide whether to bring their EV SMR inhouse – and that it was a good time to look at this situation because a comparatively large amount of SMR EV data was starting to become available.

“There are now quite a lot of fleets that now have two-, three- and even four-year-old electric cars, so we are close to having complete life cycles on which to base our research, showing how EVs stand up to wear and tear over a period of time, and how this impacts on the amount of SMR they need.”

While less information is available on electric vans – due to “even the most experienced fleets” not tending to have many that are much more than a year old – the AFP is also working to provide as much information as possible in this area too.

“This is a fleet subject where it seems to us that some kind of definitive picture is very much needed, and the AFP is well positioned to meet that requirement,” Hollick stated.