Better Fleet: A practical playbook for navigating charging infrastructure gaps

1. Understand charging behaviour before installing infrastructure

Many fleets still begin infrastructure planning by estimating how many chargers they think they need. The stronger approach is usually to understand charging behaviour operationally first:

  • where vehicles dwell
  • how often they return to depot
  • which routes create charging pressure
  • how utilisation affects charging windows

For example, fleets are often discovering that simultaneous depot returns are creating charging bottlenecks despite having sufficient charger numbers on paper.

Platforms such as Webfleet, Samsara and Geotab are increasingly helping fleets build this operational picture before deployment begins.

2. Take advantage of workplace and depot infrastructure funding

A growing number of fleets still underestimate the scale of infrastructure funding now available.

The UK government’s Depot Charging Scheme now offers up to 70% funding towards depot charging and civil works, capped at £1 million per organisation.

Meanwhile, Workplace Charging Scheme grants have increased to £500 per socket.

For many fleets, the challenge is no longer whether support exists. It's whether infrastructure planning is happening early enough to access that funding before operational pressure increases.

3. Build charging around multiple environments

Most EV fleets quickly evolve into mixed charging ecosystems involving depot, home, public and near-home charging simultaneously.

That creates complexity around reimbursement, visibility and operational consistency. Providers helping fleets manage this include:

  • Rightcharge – charging payments and reimbursement management
  • Allstar – integrated charging payments across multiple charging environments
  • Paua – public charging access and consolidated billing

The operational challenge is maintaining visibility across all charging environments rather than managing each separately. This becomes particularly important when fleets are trying to reduce unnecessary rapid charging costs or monitor how drivers are using home charging tariffs.

4. Explore managed charging models early

A growing number of fleets are discovering they do not necessarily want to manage charging infrastructure internally at scale.

That is driving interest in Charging-as-a-Service models where infrastructure, monitoring, maintenance and energy management are combined into a single operational layer.

Providers increasingly active in this area include:

For many fleets, the biggest value is reducing operational complexity as charging activity scales. That is particularly useful for operators dealing with depot upgrades, grid constraints or limited in-house energy expertise.

5. Prioritise uptime over charger volume

More chargers do not automatically create better charging operations. Infrastructure reliability increasingly matters just as much as infrastructure scale.

This became a major industry talking point last week after parts of the sector criticised new charger uptime regulations as “toothless” despite rapid chargers being required to meet 99% reliability standards.

As fleets become more dependent on EV uptime, issues such as maintenance response times, software resilience and charger monitoring become operationally critical.

Providers like Gridserve are increasingly focusing heavily on resilience and operational continuity, while Zapmap is helping fleets improve charger visibility and route planning by giving drivers real-time access to charger availability, reliability data and nationwide charging network coverage.


6. Treat energy planning as part of fleet planning

As Charlie Cook, Founder and CEO of Rightcharge, recently told FleetWise:

“Public charging accounts for just 27% of sessions, but it’s draining 57% of total charging costs.”

That imbalance is becoming increasingly important as fleets scale.

Rightcharge analysis suggests moving drivers onto managed home charging and EV-specific tariffs can save around £1,000 per driver annually, while reducing unnecessary reliance on expensive public rapid charging.

Providers such as mer, Octopus Electric Vehicles and Rightcharge are increasingly helping fleets treat charging and energy planning as part of wider operational strategy rather than standalone infrastructure deployment.

7. Pilot operationally before scaling commercially

The fleets navigating electrification most effectively are often the ones scaling most carefully. Controlled operational trials help fleets understand:

  • real charging demand
  • driver charging behaviour
  • site pressure
  • software reliability
  • infrastructure performance

before wider rollout decisions are made.

mer’s work with Elis, for example, focused on aligning charging infrastructure with overnight charging windows, depot turnaround schedules and future fleet expansion rather than simply installing infrastructure reactively.

Similarly, Durham County Council’s charging rollout focused on creating scalable infrastructure capable of supporting multiple operational fleet requirements as EV adoption increases across different services. 

More guidance in this series:

Why fleets are losing control of charging before they've fully scaled

What good charging strategy actually looks like

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