By Tanner Lee, Kingbee Vans
February 21, 2024
EVs are coming—will you be left behind? Magician Dai Vernon said it best: “What the eyes see, the heart must believe.” Fleet managers should trust their instincts when they see the federal government, manufacturers, and corporate America pushing for EVs.
California plans to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles in the state by 2035, and the White House is spending $7.5B to build a national network of 500,000 publicly available chargers by 2030. In January 2024, Biden awarded another $623 million in grants to further incentivize the building of chargers.
Before fleets nationwide can transition to EVs, they must solve two main challenges: range and charging. Electric vehicles have limited range compared to gas-powered cars, usually only able to travel 200-300 miles on a single charge. This poses a challenge for fleets that need to cover long distances daily. Additionally, fleets need charging infrastructure in place to juice up their EVs when parked overnight or not in use.
Prepare With Pollen
Pollen helps fleets solve the puzzle of EV infrastructure by providing on-site/on-demand charging for their vehicles without a large upfront payment. Pollen operates on a monthly billing cycle, so you can keep your costs fixed down and your cash working for you. The goal of Pollen is to help businesses scale their EV fleets without investing significant time and upfront capital on chargers. It’s a solution that can be deployed quickly and make sense.
- Pollen covers all hardware costs, including equipment, grid hookup, and installation
- Pollen covers all ongoing monthly costs
- Pollen leases each EV charger back to the client
- Pollen has its own meter that is fully separate from the landlord
Now that you have the chargers, it’s time to get some vans. Kingbee’s entire mission is to provide flexibility for fleet managers. Their short-term rental model gives fleets instant access to electric cargo vans that can be deployed immediately. Kingbee vans come upfitted, wrapped, and delivered to your job site. Then Pollen provides an all-in-one charging infrastructure billed on a monthly basis.
Why Pest Control Companies Go with Kingbee
Recently, one of the largest providers of pest control services in the world worked with Kingbee to get vehicles on a short-term contract. As an innovative, publicly traded company, they are interested in improving their fleet to make it easier on their technicians and a better experience for their customers. In the past, their fleet included the Ford Transit Connect and the Dodge ProMaster City. Since both of those vehicles have been discontinued, they’ve been exploring other options.
The director of this pest control company expressed excitement about the opportunity to add more electric vehicles to their fleet as part of their sustainability initiative. Canoo vehicles had the specifications they were looking for, and Kingbee could get them their vehicles, with all the required equipment, quickly and on flexible terms. This way they could try the product to make sure it’s a viable option for their day-to-day operations.
Why The Rental Model Works
Renting from Kingbee lets you try out EVs before committing to something long term. Rental vehicles are off of the balance sheet, as opposed to your owned assets. This means fleets of all sizes can integrate rentals into their acquisition strategy without changing their financial model.
Small fleets with little to no allocation can use rentals to avoid overpaying for vehicle MSRP. Medium fleets with some allocation could use rentals to scale or downsize quickly. Large fleets with preferential allocation could lean on rentals to help with cash flow. By renting with Kingbee, you can expect to:
- Try before you buy
- Stay proactive, not reactive
- Maintain positive cash flow
Fleet managers are concerned with the bottom line, and the good ones are savvy enough to forecast future costs. Most fleets acquire vehicles through a combination of purchasing and leasing. Kingbee offers a third option to accommodate any acquisition strategy, by letting you try before you buy, so that you know what you’re getting yourself into before committing to a large order.
Vehicle ownership has its perks, but what if you need vehicles for a short period of time, like during peak season or for a large job? Or maybe your order from a dealership got delayed, and you can’t afford to wait around. Or you want to test a new technology before investing major capital. In all of these instances, renting will help you adjust – and Kingbee is the chiropractor you can’t live without.
Kingbee Adds Utility to Your Fleet
There is no other company that will upfit, wrap and deliver fleet vans across the country on a month-to-month contract. With 14 bays in 28,000 square feet of shop space, Kingbee will enhance the utility of your commercial vehicles by upfitting them with the best equipment in the industry. They add shelving, ladder racks, and partitions from Ranger Design, wrap the vans in custom branding, then deliver the vehicles to job sites around the country.
Kingbee is a work-ready van rental solution. In 3-4 weeks, you could have brand new utility vehicles in your fleet. There are hundreds of vans available now, so call today to see if Kingbee can help you meet your fleet goals.