Better Fleet: Why fleets are losing control of charging before they’ve fully scaled

May 19, 2026

Most fleets now accept that EVs can work operationally.

The problem is that many are scaling charging activity faster than they are scaling charging control.

Vehicles are now charging across homes, depots, public networks and near-home locations simultaneously, often with very little visibility sitting over the top. Fleets may know where vehicles are, but many still cannot clearly see how charging is happening, what it's costing or whether infrastructure is supporting operations efficiently.

That gap is creating a new operational risk across the industry: charging-related downtime.

Fleets are discovering charging is harder to standardise than fuel

Diesel fleets evolved around consistency.

Fuel cards, bunkering and fixed reimbursement processes created standardisation. Charging behaves differently.

Every charging environment introduces different tariffs, payment systems, software platforms and operational behaviours. That fragmentation is becoming one of the hidden operational problems inside electrification.

As Charlie Cook, Founder and CEO of Rightcharge, recently told FleetWise in his Fleet1000 interview:

“90% of our fleet drivers are still on standard electricity tariffs.”

That insight matters because it reveals how immature charging governance still is across large parts of the fleet sector. We previously reported that an AA and Rightcharge trial found fleets could reduce charging costs by up to 35% through better charging management and tariff optimisation.

Infrastructure growth is masking operational weaknesses

The UK charging network is growing rapidly, with Zapmap data showing the country has now surpassed 120,000 EV chargers across more than 46,000 charging locations.

At the same time, workplace and depot infrastructure funding is accelerating. The government’s Depot Charging Scheme now offers fleets up to 70% funding towards depot charging and civil works, capped at £1 million per organisation, while Workplace Charging Scheme support has increased to £500 per socket.

But infrastructure rollout alone doesn't create operational confidence. A ten-vehicle EV fleet can often absorb charging friction relatively easily. A one-hundred-vehicle operation can't.

The challenge is no longer simply charger availability. It's whether charging infrastructure can support uptime consistently under operational pressure.

Depot charging is exposing a new operational divide

The Road Haulage Association continues to identify depot and public infrastructure as major barriers slowing electric van and HGV adoption.

But the deeper issue is operational scalability.

As fleets grow, many are entering unfamiliar territory involving site capacity, charging schedules, software integration and future power demand. Fleet teams are increasingly having to think like energy operators as much as transport operators.

That pressure becomes particularly visible during peak operational windows where multiple vehicles compete for limited charging capacity while still needing to meet strict turnaround schedules.

Charging reliability is becoming a fleet uptime issue

Increasingly, fleets are becoming more concerned with reliability, usability and operational resilience.

That issue came into sharper focus just last week after new UK charger uptime regulations were criticised as “toothless” by parts of the industry despite requiring rapid chargers to achieve 99% reliability.

Speaking recently about the wider EV infrastructure challenge, EVA England chief executive Vicky Edmonds argued the market is now facing a much broader operational problem:

“We’ve moved beyond the early adopter phase now. This is no longer just about whether the technology works. It’s about whether the overall system works for people consistently, reliably and conveniently every day. We are now dealing with a consumer systems challenge rather than simply a technology challenge.”

For commercial fleets operating time-sensitive vehicles, inconsistency across charging networks increasingly translates directly into operational risk.

Charging infrastructure is becoming connected operational infrastructure

Modern chargepoints are no longer passive infrastructure. They are connected systems linked to vehicles, payment platforms, operational software and energy networks simultaneously.

In a recent EV Infrastructure News analysis, cybersecurity specialist Claire Maslen warned:

“Every connection, whether through wireless entry points or physical connections to charging infrastructure, represents a potential back door for bad actors.”

Charging infrastructure is starting to behave more like enterprise operational technology than traditional facilities hardware, bringing new expectations around resilience, uptime and software management.

The market is moving towards charging management, not charger ownership

This is why Charging-as-a-Service models are gaining traction.

Providers such as Impact Energy Global, mer and bp pulse are increasingly positioning charging as a managed operational layer combining infrastructure, maintenance, software and energy management together.

Operators are becoming less interested in simply owning charging hardware and more focused on reducing operational uncertainty around charging itself.

The fleets moving fastest are the ones building the clearest operational control around charging.

In the next article, we look at what good charging strategy actually looks like in practice.