Basin Electric Power Cooperative: A Utility Fleet Success Story
An insider look at how they did it, and how you can too.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative (BEPC) is a model for how utility companies can optimize the use of fleet vehicles to drive down the total cost of providing energy to its customers while enhancing the levels of service to their drivers. Gain insight from their example to increase utilization and save money.
In this new case study, learn how BEPC:
- Reduced vehicle acquisition costs by approximately $100,000
- Generated ongoing annual savings of $20,000
- Automated data collection and maintenance to support vehicle and key accountability
- ...and much more.
Driving in Severe Weather – What You Need to Know
Hurricane season is here and 2021 is expected to be another above-normal season, according to NOAA. If you must travel in severe weather, we encourage all drivers to keep a few things in mind.
Drive With Extra Caution When It’s Raining:
Drive Slowly - It’s harder to control or stop your vehicle on a slick road. Increase your following distance so you’ll have plenty of time to stop for vehicles ahead of you. Also remember that every vehicle handles differently; this is particularly true when driving on wet roads.
Turn Around Don’t Drown - People often underestimate the power of rushing water. It only takes 12 inches of rushing water to carry away most cars, and just two feet of rushing water can carry away most trucks and SUVs. The CDC reports the most common type of flood-related drowning occurs when a vehicle is driven into hazardous flood water. When you see the road is flooded, or if there are barriers blocking the road, turn around.
Read the article at NHTSA.
Can Battery Swapping Beat EV Charging?
By Mike Sheldrick, Senior Editor
Ample, a San Francisco start-up, plans to capture a large share of the fleet market for electric vehicles using a recharging method as old as electric vehicles themselves: battery swapping.
Early in the 20th century, electric vehicles were the top sellers, Garages and electric utilities often swapped batteries instead of recharging them. But then, ICE-powered cars began to dominate. By the late 1920s, electrics had all but disappeared.
Ample says that it can change out a battery in a robotized swap unit within 10 minutes, and it will soon reduce turnaround to five minutes. That compares favorably to a Tesla supercharger, which can take up to 45 minutes for an 80% charge. Heat build-up can harm the battery during supercharging, so higher level charging is not recommended.
Most electric owners charge their cars overnight at home by merely topping them off daily. That won't work for long trips, nor when large numbers of BEVs are sold.
Fleet Logistics: Timing is Right for UK Fleets to Transition to EVs
The UK electric vehicle (EV) market has reached a tipping point and UK businesses have never been better placed to review their transition to EVs and grasp the opportunity to take advantage of all grants while still available.
So says Fleet Logistics UK, the UK arm of Fleet Logistics Group, which says tax incentives both corporate and personal, government funding for EVs and home and workplace charging, plus a range of excellent new models coming onto the market, have meant that the timing is right for EV transitioning.
Europe’s largest independent mobility management provider, with 180,000 vehicles under contract in 27 countries, Fleet Logistics believes that all businesses should now be looking at their policy and mobility roadmap very seriously.
LA’s No Longer No. 1 — At Least Not When it Comes to Traffic
As anyone who has tried to negotiate Tinseltown freeways like the I-5, 10 and 405, gridlock is a way of life, Los Angelinos measuring distances in time, rather than miles.
But after holding the “honor” of being America’s most congested city for the last three decades, LA has emerged from the pandemic way down in the No. 4 spot, at least according to a new study by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
Based on the number of hours a typical motorist is expected to lose creeping through traffic, the New York-Newark megalopolis took the title. Drivers in and around the Big Apple will clock 56 lost hours a year, according to the institute’s 2021 Urban Mobility Report.
Read the article at The Detroit Bureau.
