Fleets that are among the early adopters of electrification have plenty of homework to do around charging infrastructure requirements, even before they purchased that first EV. During a Greentech education session at Truck World, we asked to electrification experts for advice on how to get started on the path to zero emissions. Gabriela Favaron, director of EV infrastructure at 7Gen, since fleets looking to electrify should begin by planning their charging requirements.

Gabriela Favaron: Starting with the charging infrastructure planning is imperative for a successful electrification planning today, just because like when you start with the charging, like you really understand, what are your vehicles like?

What specifically your vehicle requirements are like, how many kilometers you’re running in a day,  you know? What is the charger that you actually need to select? What software, you’re going to add it to your opportunities, design?

And, yeah, it’s just like, it helps like, you know, just thinking ahead, and it could be one of the biggest hurdles, when you actually get to the point of getting the vehicle, the vehicle is not, it’s not that easy.

Let’s say like, we’re still like, you know, seeing a lot of cool technologies coming in this space. But the charging side of infrastructure, like getting infrastructure done and deploying, that getting the access to that power is imperative for you to have like a successful deployment overall. So I would say it started there, and we’ll follow through.

Elizabeth Baker is partner, Deloitte supply chain and network operations. She too works with fleets looking to electrify and has this advice for those considering taking the plunge?

Elizabeth Baker: Yeah, and the key to that is fleets grounding themselves in their data. So I always think of it as a Venn diagram, what are the vehicles or routes that are electrifiable based on range capacity, available technology as well as payload?

What are the facilities where you may have available capacity to put chargers in without needing upgrades? And where do you get the best bang for buck in terms of emission, so a vehicle in B.C. gets you lower or higher emissions reduction than, say, a vehicle in Nova Scotia, based on the grid, the cleanliness of the grid.

So once you look at that Venn diagram of where does it make the most sense to start, there is usually a very obvious nexus in the middle of those where it makes sense to start. And then you can look out, okay, maybe there’s a place where we need to change some operations, or we might need to upgrade, we might need to look at some solutions, like micro grids, you’d put those further down on your roadmap.

And then there may be others further even further down, where there’s not technology available today. So stay close to what’s happening in the market, understand when that technology might become available and put those further down.

For early adopters of commercial electric vehicles, it will almost certainly be a requirement to set up their own charging infrastructure behind the fence or the vehicle’s home terminal. That according to a recent report from Deloitte, Elizabeth Baker explains.

Elizabeth Baker: Yeah, so that report touched on the factor of behind the fence charging, which fleet operators can be responsible for and in control of versus outside the fence. And so our advice for fleet operators is to focus currently on behind the fence charging.

What are the vehicles that return to base at night that you can put charging infrastructure in for and start there, start with what’s in your control, understand the capacity of the facilities, and then understand where you may need upgrades, or you may need other solutions, like I mentioned, like micro-grid containers.

So really focus today on what’s possible, while keeping an eye on the outside the fence public charging that we’re starting to see grow.

 With a lack of widespread public charging infrastructure for commercial vehicles. We asked Elizabeth, how realistic the government’s timelines are to decarbonize the movement of goods.

Elizabeth Baker: When you think about what the government on both sides of the border has put out there, they’re indicating to industry that they’re, they want to put some certainty in the market.

And they want to put some supports around that. And so I think about that in three ways. One being what certainty are they providing? How are they demonstrating that they’re trying to learn more about what the industry needs?

And then the third being what do I think they could do more of around certainty, you know, they’ve put out targets, they’re also providing incentives, whether it’s for medium or heavy duty, whether it’s for infrastructure, there’s clean fuel regs, there’s clean fuel standards, there’s the carbon tax, which we love to talk about in Canada, you know, and the infrastructure bank is putting money into the infrastructure as well.

So they’re trying to drive that demand and that certainty in the market, there and in parallel, they’re also investing in certain pilots and demonstrations like Transport Canada’s heavy duty  fleet pilot trial.

And so through that they’re trying to get a better understanding of what governance is going to be required. What does the industry need to really start to accelerate deployment? I do think there is some work to be done by the government in relation to utilities and working together to understand what kind of infrastructure is going to be needed.

Is the grid going to be ready? And what how do they need to work together to do that? So I think there’s the answer to your question is it’s possible but there’s work to be done.