Fleet News Group Podcast: How ReimburseEV is Driving Home Charging Innovation Amidst a Shifting Political Landscape
The Fleet News Group invited the Founder and CEO of MoveEV, David Lewis, to share his insights on the prioritization of electrification in the U.S., regardless of the current or anticipated political climate. David discussed the critical role of home charging reimbursement solutions in the evolving landscape of U.S. electrification. Tune in to the episode for insights of challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, as the industry maintains its momentum in innovation and sustainability. Feel free to watch below or scroll down to read the interview transcript.
Caroline Fall: Welcome to the Fleet News Group podcast. I'm Caroline Fall, and today I have David Lewis from Boston, Massachusetts, on the line to talk about his company, MoveEV, and solutions for fleets transitioning from gasoline to electric-powered vehicles. Welcome, David!
David Lewis: Good morning, Caroline! Great to be here!
Caroline Fall: I can't help but start with a read on the US political landscape. The big question for those of us championing sustainable transport and the move to greater reliance on renewable energy sources is: what are companies like yours doing to prepare for policies of Trump, should he get in? What would that mean for fleet electrification in the US?
David Lewis: I believe whoever is in the White House, there will be a proliferation of electric vehicles in the US. The states have a lot of control over policy and Net Zero goals here, and around 25 of them have policies and mandates baked in for governments and commercial fleets to transition to electric vehicles. Also, both parties, Democrats and Republicans, are for creating jobs as well as lowering costs for businesses. Electric vehicles are a great way to create jobs in America, reduce operating costs for businesses, put more money into the economy, and waste less money on fuel. The cat’s out of the bag here. We work with all these government fleets from Georgia to Washington, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Colorado, and they're all adopting electric vehicles, having great operational outcomes, and saving a bunch of money. That's why it's going to win, and I think the incentives that have been in play and will be in play over the next five years, especially through the IRA and a bunch of state legislation, are really going to continue to move the ball forward so that we can catch up. So, I'm very optimistic.
Caroline Fall: I sort of feel like saying "phew." Let's get the background on your company, MoveEV. Can you tell us what you do, where you operate, and how long you've been doing it?
David Lewis:
We've been around for four years. We operate in the US and Canada, and our focus is on sustainability, specifically helping large corporations and governments transition their fleets to electric vehicles. Our focus is a gap in the market, which is charging at home reimbursement.
What's happening now in America as fleets are adopting electric vehicles is that 80% of them are getting sent home to charge. Sending them home to charge creates a new business expense for an employer and an obligation for an employee to provide the electricity. We sit squarely in the middle there to make sure that the electricity and the funds flow freely. Our focus is on eliminating this bottleneck in the market. We offer a technology solution to create accurate business receipts so that the employee and the employer know exactly how much it costs to fill the vehicle with energy. Then we quickly dispense funds to the employees so they're not out of pocket for very long for the electricity costs that they're fronting for their employer.
Caroline Fall: ReimburseEV—the way I understand it, it's a win-win for both the fleet driver and the business they work for. You've somehow worked out how to make at-home charging for fleet vehicles transparent, and I want to hear more details about it.
David Lewis: We are the first to market and the market leader right now for this. There are two pieces of information that you need to put together for an accurate charging-at-home receipt.
How do I measure how much energy went into the vehicle? We're hyper-accurate, and our preferred method to do that is through vehicle-based telematics like a Geotab or a Samsara device that can track how much energy is put into the vehicle when it's being charged.
What did it cost? In the US, everyone's utility bill and plan is different, so what we do that's so unique is we actually look at the employee's utility bill on a monthly basis to decipher what the kilowatt cost should be for when that vehicle was charged. It's very complicated in the US because your rate can change by time of day, if you have solar, there may be an economic incentive program, and there's a lot of gray to be worked out. This is why my background as a vehicle and charging-at-home reimbursement expert really comes into play here, so we can make sure that we are reading everyone's utility bill correctly.
Caroline Fall: What about the drivers? I understand that they're responsible for the installation and ownership of the charger. So did they pay for that hardware and then get reimbursed? How does that work?
David Lewis:
One of my favorite quotes is, "There's no right way to eat an apple." As fleets are rolling out these charging-at-home programs, they make different decisions based on their culture.
Some will pay for a level two charger and installation, and some will say that if you don't drive a crazy amount—in the United States, 70 miles a day is the average fleet trip—then you really don't even need to install a level two. If you're diligent about plugging into a level one outlet in your driveway at home, that's actually going to trickle charge your vehicle enough overnight, so there really isn't a need to have a level two. Understanding all of these options, the company can make the right decision for how they want to roll out their charging-at-home reimbursement program.
What is unique about our program is that we do not rely on a smart charger to get the charging information. We actually try to move companies away from that model because that model is fraught with errors and driver dissatisfaction because, as you know, anything that needs to be online all the time isn't, and when it's not online, it doesn't track charging events. What's great about our solution is we're able to make any charger smart by getting the information about the charging directly from the vehicle.
Caroline Fall: When you mentioned level one and level two chargers, are you talking about slow chargers versus fast chargers?
David Lewis: Yes, I'm sorry. There are three levels in the US.
Level 1: Just goes into a normal outlet, something that's going to charge three to five miles an hour.
Level 2: A semi-fast charge that's going to charge around 15 to 35 miles an hour. That's a level charger that you would install at your home to go a little bit faster and needs 240 volts.
Level 3: A supercharger that's going to be able to charge you up to potentially 100 miles an hour and up.
Caroline Fall: Thanks for clarifying that because I know you advocate for slow chargers where possible. You say that slow chargers are better for the vehicle as they prolong battery life, require the lowest financial outlay, etc. So, I'd love for you to talk a bit more about that and why this sort of top-shelf setup—the networked fast charger—really, in many cases, is overkill.
David Lewis: How fleet electrification historically has been proposed to fleets in the United States is, "Hey Acme Corp, let's electrify your fleet. Which chargers would you like to buy first? Let's pick out a $1,500 level 2 charger that you might like, then let's figure out how we're gonna install this in your house.” It made logical sense at the time that the fleet would have to figure out infrastructure, but that's because fleet managers didn't really understand the business and actual charging behavior.
Most fleet managers, even if they're rolling out electric vehicles, don't own or operate an electric vehicle on a daily basis. And charging companies did a great job of saying, "You need these all to be networked so we can aggregate all this information, and that's how you are going to understand the charging behavior of your drivers."
Well, what happened a couple of years ago is that telematics companies and OEMs started showing you the charging data—and actually, getting the charging data from the vehicle is a better source of truth than a charger that can be used by anyone in the neighborhood! When you're talking about a business expense, you want to be hyper-accurate about the energy going into the work's vehicle, not your neighbor's vehicle.
So, we've been out talking to the market, explaining all of this to them, doing total cost of ownership math, and really showing them that charging slower is better. For the vehicle, it's been proven, like you said, to do less harm to the battery, and it also forces overnight off-peak hour charging because it takes longer, so you can plug it in and forget it and naturally get the lowest cost rates. In the US, that can be between 15 and 35 cents less than a peak rate.
I think that people were panicking. They were looking for solutions, and the charging companies were there to offer them. So, in my opinion, those solutions were maybe a little bit oversold and overbought.
It’s really exciting where we are now, where people are starting to think, "Hey, I actually want to get this information from the vehicle. There's no real reason why this charger needs to be super smart. I'm not doing anything special with it, and it's offline all the time anyway. So, why don't we either level one, maybe we reimburse or help a little bit with installing level two if it's an actual need?"
Caroline Fall: So you mentioned telematics is sort of integral and your products are agnostic about telematics companies, but you mentioned Geotab, which is a sponsor of my podcast.
David Lewis: I love Geotab. We have a very special relationship with Geotab. We're in their Marketplace and are part of their Sustainability Alliance, and we are very excited about working with them because they are the best in class right now for telematic solutions. They have invested, and the richness of the data that they're able to provide on electric vehicles is just unparalleled.
Our goal is to work with everybody and meet our clients where they are, but you know we are very impressed with Geotab. It's all over their marketing that they're very sustainability-first, and I think that is differentiating right now. We can't recommend them enough, but there are other wonderful telematics providers out there that we do work with and are more than happy to work with, that do offer good solutions.
Caroline Fall: Obviously, you know we're all on this education path, and I was just wondering: where we are now, what are the sticking points or misconceptions still holding back adoption of electric vehicles among US fleet managers?
David Lewis: A couple of things:
They're still known as being more expensive, so that's really interesting. A lot of these vehicles are at or below the cost of their internal combustion counterparts today, just on sticker price, so that's a barrier that we need to get over.
A lot of fleet managers are also very concerned about their drivers pushing back—not wanting to change behavior, not wanting an electric vehicle.
There is this charging conundrum. They're thinking, "How are these things going to charge?" and they're thinking, "I either have to lose a lot of my day by having these people charge in public, give them some sort of charging card, or I'm going to install a bunch of chargers behind the fence, and then I have to figure out how to ensure these vehicles are there when needed."
So what is really starting to open their minds is when the elite fleets in the space are showing success with these electric vehicles. The fleet management industry is really tight-knit. As the bigger players adopt and are vocal about successes, a lot of the fleet managers will follow suit.
What's really exciting right now is that a lot of companies that a couple of years ago were talking about getting their first five or ten now have them and are ordering their next fifty or a hundred because solving this charging-at-home reimbursement conundrum really makes the rollout so much easier. They don't have to wait to install chargers or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars installing chargers on-site.
It solves the turnover issues, too. In the USA, fleets can have a 25% attrition rate in their workforce. If I install this charger today, this man or woman may not be here later. Then what am I going to do with the charger? We get to cross all those problems off the list.
Finally, if you've got a thousand vehicles in your fleet, it's impossible to install charging at work, and it will ruin your business if those vehicles charge in public. Fleet managers are really worried about reducing their uptime with electric vehicles, and what's brilliant about charging at home is that every day you start with a full tank, so you eliminate trips to the electric station by charging at home, and that should save you thirty minutes to an hour a week.
Caroline Fall: Amazing, I'm sold! I absolutely love it and I'm so excited to share it with our listeners. Thanks for your time, David; it's been fantastic to talk to you.
David Lewis: It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.