Key takeaways from The Great British Fleet Event

The Great British Fleet Event

Last week, we attended the Great British Fleet Event in London, garnering some fantastic insights in to challenges ahead for fleet professionals.

“Urban Fleet”, “Mobility” and “Electric Vehicles” were the key topics discussed by speakers, with crucial questions around how the industry can effectively adopt new technologies and adapt to the changing market place.

Here, we share some of the key takeaways we took away from the event.

  1. Electric Vehicle Adoption- business models and mind-sets need to change for full adoption.

There are increasing pressures on the industry to include Electric vehicles (EVs) within fleets, but the question remains the same- why aren’t more fleets switching to electric?

Sam Clarke, founder of Gnewt, highlighted some of the issues that he has faced operating a large fleet of electric delivery vehicles and how the traditional business models and ways of thinking need to change before a company can truly consider going green.

In previous years, the availability, price and range of EVs have been seen as the key barriers to businesses, but with more and more coming to the market, and ranges of the vehicles increasing it’s no longer a strong enough argument. Tom Callow from BP Chargemaster also revealed their plans for installing ultra-fast charging points across the UK which starts this year, this is expected to elevate range anxiety and enable drivers to charge vehicles in a matter of minutes.

Focus has now shifted to the mind-set required to adopt EVs within fleets. Electric vehicles challenge our long-held norms and practices about how we use vehicles, and even with the best intentions of introducing them in to our fleets, it simply isn’t a straightforward switch in most business cases. Businesses must challenge their business models and mind-sets of management as well as drivers, in order for EV adoption be successful.

  1. Mobility remains a hot topic within the Fleet Industry

We know now that ‘Mobility’ is here to stay, and it is expected to disrupt the fleet industry. In Europe the market share is much greater, but the UK is starting to see a much wider up take on the new models available.

At the Great British fleet event Ubeeqo, part of Europcar Mobility Group discussed how the mobility market continues to change, and as such they are seeing a shifting role for the company car. The market is starting to see more companies looking at mobility solutions that could support businesses who want to look at travel as a whole.

The key question isn’t about future mobility, instead it should be what does the future of your business and business customers look like? And how can mobility solutions help meet these needs in the future.

  1. Wellbeing & Mental Health within our Industry

It is well documented globally that more needs to be done to understand and respond to mental health, and it’s a topic that is increasingly moving up the agenda within our industry. A nod to this was given at the Great British Fleet Event.

Poor driver wellbeing, as a result of stress and fatigue is reported to having a direct correlation with rising fleet costs, and more organisations are beginning to recognise this as an area of improvement.

Rachel Clift of the Automotive Charity BEN delivered an interesting presentation on managing and responding to mental health in the workplace, and the support available from BEN for Fleet Managers and drivers.

Over the coming months we expect to see these topics in many of the conversations happening within the industry, as well as our own discussions with our customers.