The Truth About Electric Fleets: Range, Cost & Winter Performance

[00:00] You can have 2 months of volatile prices that puts you out of business.

[00:03] They will have less range when it's cold, air conditioning's going, heating, cooling's going.

[00:08] Can you put a number on it?

[00:09] Hard to say, but like 30%.

[00:11] I'm Dan Hilson, I'm the CEO and founder of Betterfleet.

[00:14] Isn't electric vehicles the future, the idea that something is to come?

[00:18] Is this reality?

[00:19] Is it a norm now?

[00:21] Where are we at in terms of electric vehicles?

[00:24] Yeah, it's sort of somewhere between the two.

[00:26] So, you know, in London today, there's thousands of electric buses every morning.

[00:31] Leaving depots and on our software, a lot of them.

[00:35] So it's absolutely kind of present in some of those areas.

[00:40] And I think someone said to me the other day that Denmark last month, 90% of all vehicles sold were electric.

[00:45] Range anxiety, does that exist if you're a fleet owner and you're on fully electric fleet?

[00:49] Do you still have the range anxiety?

[00:50] Is there any steps you can take to avoid that?

[00:53] If you have like a municipality and you're turning up to a passenger car that you're just taking out for a day, they worry.

[00:59] They don't know if they're not used to driving an EV how that's going to work.

[01:03] And you need to explain to them how it works.

[01:05] You need to give them information and signals that it will work.

[01:08] So what does Better Fleet do?

[01:09] How do you guys help fleets that run EVs?

[01:12] So the first thing we do, we have like a platform that does planning, it does management, but it also does optimization.

[01:18] So the planning side is saying to someone, hey, you buy these vehicles and they will work.

[01:22] The drivers won't have to worry about anything.

[01:24] Why can't just drivers plug in whenever they want?

[01:26] You want them to be able to do that so that the less they know about us, the better.

[01:32] We want to make it all work for them so that in the background, once they plug in, it knows when to charge, it knows which vehicles to charge.

[01:39] So if you think about all the buses come at a certain time and they all plug in, basically we decide which vehicles get which charge.

[01:47] But also if something goes wrong, we send an incident to someone to come and fix it.

[01:51] So in the middle of the night, if something stops charging, we figure it out and we say, oh, hang on a second, this needs to work.

[01:56] So what are we going to do about it?

[01:57] So on the one hand, there's managing the energy, making sure it all goes to the right vehicles.

[02:01] And then at the other hand, if something goes wrong, what do you do about it?

[02:04] And obviously there's just the, you know, you could do that all day long, but what about the energy costs?

[02:10] So we actually optimize it to say, hey, if you don't charge in these times, it might cost you half as much to charge.

[02:15] So we orchestrate that as well to make sure everything's ready, but at the same time, it's the cheapest possible, cheapest possible cost outcome.

[02:23] The initial cost of purchase of electric vehicle versus gas or diesel-powered vehicle, and then how long does it take for that investment to return?

[02:31] So again, unfortunately, it depends on the country.

[02:33] We're talking specifically about the US.

[02:34] I know, because in Europe, the fuel is much more expensive than America, right?

[02:37] So it makes more sense.

[02:39] No tariffs on the vehicles.

[02:41] It really depends on the market in the US now because of the tariffs and because of Buy America and things like that.

[02:46] It is still quite expensive upfront and then it does take a long time to pay off.

[02:50] In a lot of the heavy vehicle segments, it is much more expensive upfront.

[02:54] So how does a fleet of electric vehicles perform in the wintertime, especially in countries like Denmark or Sweden up north where the climate is really rough?

[03:02] So this is again part of the reason for our software.

[03:05] So we help to optimize in different situations how those vehicles are going to perform.

[03:09] So we— it's potentially will calibrate because they will have less range when it's cold, air conditioning is going, heating, cooling.

[03:18] Can you put a number on it?

[03:20] Hard to say, but like 30%.

[03:21] 30%.

[03:21] Okay.

[03:22] I mean, if you think about it also, the EVs are impacted by topography.

[03:28] So like, is it hilly?

[03:30] But that can be good or bad because they have regenerative braking, right?

[03:32] Right.

[03:33] So that can be better.

[03:34] So if it's hilly, the temperature, air conditioning, etc.

[03:38] And then there's also the, you know, the other thing is the weight.

[03:43] So I have an EV at home.

[03:46] I tow a camper trailer.

[03:48] It's halfway.

[03:49] It's a 2-ton camper trailer, right?

[03:51] So it depends on how heavy.

[03:52] So these are the things.

[03:53] And that's what we help.

[03:54] We give them very accurate predictions based on the weight of the vehicle of the day, based on the route that it's taking.

[04:00] We help them to know exactly how much charge they need to do that route.

[04:04] Everything is AI right now.

[04:05] Do you guys use AI to analyze all the data and predict the future, what's going to happen?

[04:10] Yeah, absolutely.

[04:11] That's a— we're AI-first company.

[04:13] We started our digital twin training in 2017.

[04:17] What do you hear from your customers in terms of driver retention and overall driver satisfaction once they switch to an electric vehicle?

[04:24] Obviously, they're new technology.

[04:25] People get excited.

[04:28] The noise issue is huge.

[04:30] The fumes, you know, diesel fumes.

[04:32] So I think if you take like the average delivery truck driver or, you know, they're maybe a little bit uncertain when they first get in, but the ride's smoother, it's quieter, it's less polluting.

[04:43] Themselves, right?

[04:44] Yeah.

[04:45] And I think, you know, they would be very resistant to going back.

[04:49] I don't think people realize that in the heavy-duty vehicles, the difference is huge.

[04:53] Because if you take like, let's say, BMW 7 Series V12 and BMW i7 electric, there's not that much of a difference.

[05:01] They're both super smooth and powerful.

[05:02] But if you take like an older diesel garbage truck with the manual transmission— yes, noisy, clunky— then you go into nice electric garbage truck, that's probably very different.

[05:13] The cost is one thing, but what is the main reason why a fleet owner would want to switch from diesel to electric?

[05:19] Yeah, look, I mean, ultimately from a long-term planning perspective, the volatility of fuel supply is a big issue and it's a prediction issue because if you are running a big logistics fleet, you can have 2 months of volatile prices that puts you out of business.

[05:35] And where people want predictability, yes, it's maybe a little bit more expensive, but they can plan their life, they can plan their business and build that into their future pricing with their customers.

[05:44] So that's very important.

[05:45] I think, you know, once you have any EV, the energy prices are reasonably stable, the accessibility of the energy is very stable, but also the vehicle maintenance is so much less.

[05:56] So you basically have stability on the maintenance.

[05:58] It's not going to suddenly be a, oh, you know, the transmission's blown or like you just know that there's certain things and at some point you have to change the battery, but that's it.

[06:06] You know what's going to happen.

[06:07] So very predictable.

[06:08] All right.

[06:08] Thank you again.

[06:10] Pleasure.

‍