As most early adopters of electric vehicles (EVs) have learned the hard way, electrifying a commercial fleet is not just business as usual. Whereas corporate fleet managers and procurement organizations are highly skilled at purchasing, maintaining and selling internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and evaluating legacy Fleet Management Companies (FMCs), the successful introduction of EVs requires new knowledge and capabilities, involves new internal stakeholders (i.e. facilities, real estate, energy, sustainability) and new vendors, and presents new risks. With fueling of the fleet shifting from a public good (every driver can just use the nearest gas station) to a corporate responsibility, requiring each fleet to design, build, operate, or lease an electric fueling system for each vehicle, route, and location, the level of complexity associated with an EV fleet deployment expands exponentially. Yet most corporate procurement systems, and the legacy FMCs that historically responded to RFPs, have not evolved to meet this new reality.
This mismatch leads to suboptimal results. Over and over again we see companies launching their electrification efforts in one of two ways, based on how they procure and manage vendors today: i) they either run their standard fleet RFP process, treating EVs and the electrification journey as just another ancillary service, thereby ignoring the complexities of charging and hoping their legacy FMC somehow figures it out, or ii) they treat fleet and charging as two different beasts altogether, running one RFP for fleet and another for charging infrastructure, leading to missed connections, lost opportunities for synergy and coordination, and increased complexity, risk and cost.
There’s a better way. In response to this market gap, and the repeated frustrations we heard from fleet managers and operational leaders regarding the poor results of their initial electrification efforts, Inspiration launched its eFMC model in 2021. Designed from the ground up to deliver successful fleet electrification at scale, and leveraging a team of experts from across fleet management, vehicle leasing, charging, energy management, and technology, we devise and implement a custom electrification strategy for every fleet, combining the best of legacy FMCs with a comprehensive set of charging solutions delivered on the most modern technology platform. With our eFMC, you get one expert partner responsible for the totality of your electrification journey, not just a piece of the puzzle.
Electrification is different. Your fleet management partner needs to be different too.