Blasting through the Barriers to Fleet Electrification

More and more fleet operators are choosing to go electric as fully functional and reliable electric trucks, buses and off-road equipment become available.  Over the last six months, the percentage of fleets planning to deploy electric vehicles (EVs) within the next year has more than doubled.

AMPLY is pleased to be a contributor to the National EV Charging Initiative, a collaboration of actors --both public and private -- doing the work of deploying a national EV Charging network that is needed to meet the ambitious air quality, climate, and equity goals set forth by the Biden Administration.

A key Guiding Principle of the Initiative is a recognition of the “urgent need to scale up and broaden access to charging infrastructure to serve light, medium and heavy-duty fleets.” AMPLY supports this transition with solutions that simplify and de-risk fleet electrification.  We have helped diverse fleet operators electrify, including public transit agencies, school bus fleets, delivery services, and ridesharing companies. 

Through this work we have seen firsthand the opportunities and benefits of fleet electrification, including lower total cost of ownership for operators, less exposure to local air pollution in frontline communities, and lower Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.  Electrifying high-mileage EV fleets is a high-impact strategy for reducing emissions -- they drive more than three times the average distance of non-commercial vehicles and have the potential to reduce GHG emissions per passenger by up to 50 percent per mile. 

At AMPLY, we have learned that there are still significant barriers to fleet electrification. Chief among these obstacles are insufficient public charging facilities and slow utility interconnection processes. Making the process of connecting to the grid simpler and more transparent is essential if we are to meet our state and federal electric vehicle deployment goals.  Today, interconnection is a one-off process that can take over a year for a single site. The uncertain timing and complex application process for utility service upgrades delays or discourages EV infrastructure installation, in turn stalling EV adoption by fleets. 

Another attribute of the National EV Charging Initiative is the recognition of the need to streamline planning, permitting, grant-making, and regulatory processes by disseminating, adopting, and scaling up early actors’ best practices and successful models.

Utilities need to be ready to support this wholesale transformation of goods and people movement.  Today’s slow, one-off approach will not scale.  New holistic planning paradigms and a systematic approach to interconnecting fleets are essential to blast through barriers to fleet electrification.

Across the country, utilities, regulators, local government and communities must team up to meet this challenge. We applaud the National EV Charging Initiative’s role as convener and its call for “electric utilities, regulators, charging providers, and stakeholders to work together to accelerate transportation electrification in a way that supports the electric grid and benefits all utility customers.”