Giving fleets the data they need to successfully adopt electric vehicles won Webfleet Solutions the Green Innovation Award at the 2022 What Van? Awards.

The telematics provider won favour with the judges by developing a dedicated EV software solution that has become an indispensable part of its software-as-a-service system.

The EV toolkit starts with the fleet electrification planning report, which allows managers to successfully identify vehicles with internal combustion engines in their fleet in order to find which can be replaced with electric alternatives.

With real-world ranges of EVs often lower than official published ranges, due to factors such as load, temperature, terrain and driving behaviour, the feature draws on telematics data from incumbent vehicles to provide maximum daily realistic mileages for managers to consider. Along with criteria such as road types and standstill times, an accurate representation of a fleet’s true potential for electrification can be found.

The toolkit also supports the ongoing functionality of EVs via workflow planning, which can be optimised with real-time battery levels and remaining driving ranges available for each fleet vehicle.

EV health data enables pre-emptive maintenance, while drivers on the road can find charge points via PRO satnav devices, which carry locations of charging infrastructure across more than 50 countries.

There is also a charger connection report feature, which helps to ensure vehicle charging occurs at times of day when tariffs are most favourable, and just before vehicles are needed for operation. To ensure battery life is maximised, it is designed to keep the battery charge level within the optimum 20–80% range.

In addition, there is Webfleet’s latest feature for the EV toolkit, the energy consumption report, which provides an analysis of energy usage in kWh, per vehicle, per day, allowing fleet managers to compare vehicles’ energy performance, and identify and address cases of inefficient operation. The report includes a breakdown of energy expended while driving and also on other processes, such as powering auxiliary equipment, and also includes the amount of energy recovered to the battery by regenerative braking systems – the latter an important part of measuring and improving driving performance to optimise efficiency.

Among the multitude of organisations successfully deploying Webfleet’s EV solution is Oxford City Council. A leading local authority on the subject of transport decarbonisation, the council specifically chose to use Webfleet for its public and commercial services division because of the strength of its EV facilities, and it is being used to optimise vehicle utilisation and charging.

Reacting to the Green Innovation Award win, regional director for UK & Ireland Beverley Wise said: “Webfleet Solutions is committed to ensuring that its technology innovations are far more than inventions, but developments that help raise the bar for safe, sustainable and efficient business performance.

“Winning this award is testimony to the ingenuity, expertise and hard work of our product development team in bringing the benefits of telematics insight to fleets embarking on their journey to a carbon-neutral future.

“We will continue to identify opportunities to harness the power of fleet data to advance our fleet management solutions, supporting not only meaningful digital transformation for fleet operators, but also the decarbonisation of transport.”

For more information visit www.webfleet.com or call 0208 822 3605.