Newsroom

How to reduce EV fleet charging costs: the lever most operators are not using

Newsroom

How to reduce EV fleet charging costs: the lever most operators are not using

Newsroom

How to reduce EV fleet charging costs: the lever most operators are not using

Fleet operators spend a lot of energy negotiating energy tariffs. They compare depot electricity contracts, evaluate network memberships, and look for ways to reduce the cost per kWh. This is worth doing. It is also optimising one lever while leaving a much larger one untouched.

The bigger lever is which charger the vehicle uses. The difference in cost between charging types is not marginal. Depot AC charging on an overnight commercial energy contract typically costs between 0.10 and 0.18 EUR per kWh. Public DC fast chargers at motorway services run between 0.45 and 0.75 EUR per kWh. The ratio is at minimum three to one and often closer to five to one.

A fleet vehicle charging 50 kWh per day entirely at the depot pays 5 to 9 EUR per day in energy. The same vehicle charging 30 kWh at the depot and 20 kWh at a motorway fast charger pays 8 to 18 EUR per day. Across 50 vehicles running 250 days per year, the difference between these two charging profiles is 37,500 to 112,500 EUR annually, same vehicles, same routes, same deliveries.

Routing is what determines which profile each vehicle ends up in.

A routing engine that plans routes around depot charging capacity — ensuring vehicles return each day with enough reserve to recharge overnight — eliminates the need for a mid-day fast-charge top-up. When a mid-route stop is genuinely unavoidable, a routing engine that selects cost-optimised stations rather than the nearest or fastest one directs the vehicle to lower-tariff infrastructure. Destination charging opportunities — a charging bay at a regular delivery stop, for example — can be factored into the daily energy budget, reducing both fast-charge reliance and total stop time.

Drivers left to manage their own charging make convenience decisions, not cost decisions. The nearest visible fast charger at 11am is not the cheapest option. At individual scale this is a minor inefficiency. At fleet scale it is a systematic and measurable cost that compounds every operating day.

Chargetrip's routing engine incorporates charging cost data into stop selection. Given a choice between a motorway fast charger at a high tariff and a destination charger at a lower tariff that adds eight minutes to the route, it can be configured to make the cost-optimised recommendation. It can also calculate overnight charge requirements per vehicle based on tomorrow's routes — so the depot charging schedule is built around actual energy demand rather than a default charge-everything-to-100% policy.

The energy saving from routing-optimised charging behaviour is typically an order of magnitude larger than the saving from tariff negotiation alone. Both matter. The routing layer is where the larger number lives.

See how Chargetrip reduces fleet charging costs.