As fleets increasingly make the electric transition, it’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s a pressing need for driver coaching and education initiatives. A lack of requisite EV knowledge and driving skills can lead to cost-saving benefits and safety being compromised, but Beverley Wise, Webfleet regional director for Bridgestone Mobility Solutions, says there are solutions.

Beverley Wise, Webfleet regional director for Bridgestone Mobility Solutions

As fleet businesses, and their drivers, increasingly look to make the electric vehicle (EV) transition, expediency can risk being prioritised at the expense of strategic planning.

Margins are in danger of being negatively impacted by soaring inflation, supply chain disruption and rising interest rates – and this can result in a short-term approach to operational decision-making and cost-control.

While this modus operandi is understandable, it can often be to the detriment of the greater financial good.

Switching to an electric fleet calls for shrewd planning to ensure business needs are met, with cost-savings and road safety optimised. Businesses can ill-afford to cut corners.

Significantly, most fleet drivers will be unfamiliar with sitting behind the wheel of an EV, with its distinctive technologies and characteristics. And this lack of knowledge, and requisite driving proficiencies, can lead to safety, operational and financial compromises.

Appropriate education and training are crucial.

Data matters

Performance data has long been a key ingredient to fleet visibility, enabling inefficient and unsafe driving practices to be identified and addressed by businesses. The proliferation of telematics solutions has ensued as a result.

Driving performance monitoring solutions, such as Webfleet’s OptiDrive 360, which score and profile drivers based on key performance indicators, have become integral to cost and risk management strategies.

Their import remains resolute in the wake of transport electrification.

Incidents of speeding, harsh acceleration and braking can negatively impact the range of electric vehicles, in the same way that they can reduce the mpg of their fossil fuelled counterparts. Fast and inconsistent speed will invariably equate to higher energy consumption.

Access to driver behaviour intelligence, via software platforms such as Webfleet, enable fleet managers to take the pulse of fleet standards on the road, to set performance benchmarks and to establish targets for improvement. Drivers can also be empowered to improve with real time performance feedback, via in-vehicle navigation devices.

The telematics industry is also responding to EVs idiosyncrasies, with the latest EV solutions providing insights into energy usage, real time battery levels and remaining driving ranges, vehicle charge levels and charging processes.

An energy consumption report, for example, can provide an analysis of a vehicle’s energy usage in kWh per day. With this information at their fingertips, fleet managers are able to compare the energy performance being achieved by their drivers and provide targeted advice and coaching where it is needed most. It is even possible to analyse the kinetic energy recovered through regenerative braking, which offers further help to fleets to optimise vehicles’ kWh.

Indeed, Webfleet performance and energy consumption insights proved pivotal to educating our own GB EV Rally team, enabling them to achieve an impressive 3.9 mile per kWh, and a 160-mile motorway range, when they journeyed from John O’Groats to Land’s End in a Nissan e-NV200.

An energy consumption report, for example, can provide an analysis of a vehicle’s energy usage in kWh per day

The all-seeing eye

Elsewhere, integrated camera systems have opened the door to enriching telematics data with video insights.

The latest connected dashcams, with machine vision and artificial intelligence (AI), can now help identify and mitigate risky driving behaviour. Video data, combined with automated image analysis, is able to “see” and recognise objects, along with activities behind the wheel, such as distracted driving incidents and mobile phone use.

AI technology has become so sophisticated that it is then capable of learning and interpreting what the machine vision sees.

This means that a more proactive approach can be taken to managing driver safety. Video evidence can be used to make driving training and education programmes even more tailored to meet driver needs, and to support initiatives that recognise and reward good driving behaviour.

The foundations for success

Few would argue that pragmatism isn’t a laudable business virtue. In some cases however, it can give way to acute short termism. Where it is pursued to the detriment of long-term success, fleets can find themselves trailing in the wake of forward-thinking competitors.

The cost savings and returns on investment of prudent planning and strategic digital transformation can be considerable – and the electrification of transport brings this into sharp focus.

Driver education may only be one ingredient to a successful electric transition, but it is an important one that should not be neglected.

With a perfect storm of cost challenges looming large on the horizon, steps to ensure that the true potential of the e-mobility revolution are realised are set to become ever more essential.