New software helps businesses manage their EV fleets

Transitioning fleet vehicles to EVs comes with unique challenges

Navigating the logistics to switch a fleet to electric can be difficult
A new software lets you track vehicles and control charging
Fleets using it are concentrated in California, where laws are beneficial

Updated: Aug 2, 2023 / 07:38 PM CDT

Electric vehicle charging stations are pictured as the California Independent System Operator announced a statewide electricity Flex Alert urging conservation to avoid blackouts in Monterey Park, California on August 31, 2022. – Californians were told August 31, 2022 not to charge their electric vehicles during peak hours, just days after the state said it would stop selling gas-powered cars, as the aging electricity grid struggles with a fearsome heatwave. Temperatures as high as 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius) were forecast in some Los Angeles suburbs as a huge heat dome bakes a swathe of the western United States. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

(NewsNation) — Transitioning company fleets used for things like commercial trucking, delivery and transportation to electric vehicles comes is significantly more challenging than making that same switch with the family car.

One problem operators face is they need to manage power usage and avoid potential penalties while charging several vehicles. Meanwhile, they may not have a clear indication of how long it takes to fully charge each vehicle without physically being in the car.

The company Flipturn, which has been in operation for around a year, is trying to meet that challenge with its subscription-based software called Flipturn Connect. It allows fleet owners to monitor all of their vehicles and minimize the cost of charging them by charging them at the most efficient times and speeds.

Three of their early clients include trucking companies Knight Transportation, Dependable Highway Express and 4 Gen Logistics.

Flipturn CEO Katie Siegel spoke to NewsNation about Flipturn Connect and how it can help fleet operators manage the transition to electric.

The interview has been edited and paraphrased for length and clarity.

NewsNation: What are some of the challenges fleet operators face when transitioning to EVs?

Siegel: When fleets adopt electric vehicles, they now have this whole other thing to manage which are their on-site chargers, which they will install in their depot.

They end up in a situation where they have no visibility into how long charging is going to take, how it’s going to impact your operation. Charging comes with a lot of subtle costs because utility rates are really complicated, they depend on time-of-use rates and demand charges, which are based off of the absolute maximum power usage over a whole month-long period — even if there’s just one month-long spike, you still get penalized on that.

NewsNation: What could go wrong?

Siegel: So a couple of pain points that are very specific: Hey my vehicles are all plugged in at the same time and all of a sudden I’m incurring this $2,000 demand charge. I wasn’t expecting that. That’s really ruining my cost per mile for my EVs and because my leadership is looking at these cost metrics to decide whether or not to expand it also impacts the rate at which my fleet is going to expand its investment in EVs.

Another common problem is you wake up in the morning and your vehicles aren’t ready because they spontaneously stopped charging in the middle of the night.

NewsNation: So how does FleetConnnect help?

Siegel: You, in one place, can see all your vehicles at a glance, all your chargers at a glance, maybe there’s different sites, you can see across different sites.

What the Flipturn Connect dashboard looks like. Courtesy of Flipturn.

NewsNation: You mentioned that you could avoid a severe utility charge by having this information, is the idea that you would know when to charge, how many to be charging at one point so that you would avoid those charges and be more efficient?

Siegel: We connect directly to the vehicle reporting systems, but we also connect directly to the chargers. So we are able to directly control the power of the onsite hardware. If we know that you don’t want to use electricity right now, it’s really expensive, we will talk to the chargers in real-time, immediately, and immediately be able to throttle that charge to a lower level to avoid those high costs.

We also you to override those restrictions so you can say hey charge now we’ll wipe out those restrictions. Maybe you pay a little extra for that but it gives you the optionality to do whatever you want with your charging deployment.

NewsNation: What are some of the challenges as the electrification of fleets grows? Much of your existing business is in Southern California, is there a reason for that?

Siegel: We all know how bad public charging is right now. Lots of chargers are broken; lots of chargers don’t exist on the map.

That’s why a lot of these fleets have installed private charging, and a lot of fleets that are really focused on their bottom line will have their own chargers for this reason. It’s more predictable. It’s a lower cost to charge on your own site given that you have some kind of software like this.

The reason why a lot of these fleets are starting in Southern California — in areas where this is a favorable legislative environment — is because there’s both the carrot and the stick in these areas. There are incentives where California has some really great programs where you can get certain vouchers to apply toward the purchase of a commercial EV. There’s really great EVs now.

And there’s also the stick side which is things like the California Advanced Clean Fleets Act which is compelling fleets to convert to electric based off of a mandate that exists.