Ohme encourages van fleets to go electric to reduce costs

With the Commercial Vehicle Show at the NEC Birmingham next week, Ohme is encouraging more fleets to go electric to help reduce their costs.

With van sales enjoying bumper sales in March and sales of new electric vans up 14.7% compared to 2023, the choices of electric van on the market are growing ever larger.

But those fleet managers thinking of switching their van fleets to electric also need to consider the wider potential benefits of providing their drivers with home chargers too.

“Many van fleets have been slower to make the switch across to EVs compared to car fleets. A switch to electric will equal substantial savings for any fleet manager and fitting chargers to the homes of their drivers will increase those still further,” said Ohme Director Peter McDonald.

“Charging at home will always be the cheapest option all round. First, the price per kWh of the current domestic standard variable tariff is less than half a typical rapid charging public charger. Second, if the driver knows they can charge at home, they won’t have to hunt for a public charging station, so it adds valuable time to their day. The savings in employee time alone could potentially be even greater than the charging savings.”

With the average UK driver covering 6800 miles a year, smart charging on an off-peak tariff in a typical EV would cost just £170 for a year’s worth of driving with Intelligent Octopus Go at 7.5p/kWh. With the new Standard Variable Tariff of 24.5p/kWh, that same annual mileage would cost £555. By comparison, the same mileage in an equivalent van would cost a driver more than £1100.

Ohme’s dynamic smart chargers can connect with the grid in real time, automatically adjusting to optimise the cost of charging and accessing all the times of the smartest, greenest and lowest cost energy tariffs. Ohme also offers drivers the option to charge their car when renewable energy generation on the National Grid is at its highest, further lowering their CO2 impact.

Ohme is the official charger provider for Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai in the UK, as well as Polestar and the Volkswagen Group in the UK and Ireland and customers on the Motability scheme, the largest fleet operator in the UK. Ohme has been named as Fast Track Company of the Year in the 2023 UK Green Business Awards as well as Best Chargepoint Manufacturer in the 2024 Irish EV awards.

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For press information please contact:

Nat Barnes, Head of PR, Ohme – [email protected]