The typical assumption around electric vehicles is that they cost less because they leave traditional fuel behind.

A new study from the Anderson Economic Group suggests otherwise. For one, the report notes that the cost of fuel is only part of what must be considered. The other components include:

1. Commercial and residential electric power/fuel costs
2. Registration taxes
3. Equipment (e.g., chargers) and installation costs
4. Deadhead miles incurred driving to a charger or fueling station
5. The cost of time spent refueling

The study concludes that, when those other components are taken into consideration, EVs can cost more to power (for now). Let’s dive deeper into the first cost driver number one: the difference between commercial and residential electric power costs.

In Michigan, where Anderson Economic is based, rates for commercial charging run from 31 cents per kilowatt-hour to as high as 66 cents per kilowatt-hour. But, if you stay away from charging stations and stick to residential energy, it only runs you about 17 cents per kilowatt-hour. That means your employees could be paying up to four times as much for charging “on the road” versus at home.

That shouldn’t be a concern, because most EV owners (up to 85 percent according to the California Air Resources Board) charge at home. But, as a fleet owner, the chances are your drivers will not be charging at home. Unless you’ve paid to have multiple charging stations at your depot, and you require your drivers to return their car to the depot to be charged — commercial stations are what’s business-accessible.

Why? It’s also highly likely that drivers won’t get reimbursed. After all, there’s no way to know how much electricity went to the car versus the lights, the fridge or the dryer. All your drivers will know is that they’re paying more for electricity. So they’ll charge up during the day. Day charging not only costs more in real dollars it also costs you indirectly from lost productivity.

But what if every electron from every garage charger in America could accurately be accounted for and allocated for business or personal use? It can. Instead of tracking electrons at the “pump” you can track electrons with the vehicle. The vehicle is the single version of truth. It knows the date, time and location of charging. It knows if it’s a Level 1 charge or a Level 2 charge. It knows how many khw of electricity was “pumped” into the vehicle.

While solving this one issue won’t make your EVs cost less than conventional vehicles overnight, it will dramatically reduce unnecessarily high costs as well as lost productivity from daytime charging at commercial chargepoints.

Motorq’s advanced data analytics tracks and reports on monthly charging on a VIN basis, enabling fleet managers to better understand EV charging and, best of all, incentives drivers to charge at home at night. Learn more by contacting our team.