Professional fleet electrification lags due to complex infrastructure needs, but innovative solutions like EVIAS aim to integrate charging into operations seamlessly.
Private EVs gain momentum
The electrification of consumer vehicles is progressing rapidly, while the electrification of professional fleets is advancing more slowly due to the economic and logistical complexity of recharging. The World Auto Show in Paris showcased the electric wave of private electric vehicles, with nearly 25 Chinese brands presenting an increasingly wide and accessible electric offering.Simplicity for individuals
For an individual, recharging is simple: one plugs in at home, at night, on an existing network. For a company that electrifies a limited part of its fleet, the principle remains similar. A few charging stations, a bit of organization, and the imperfections are manageable: a forgotten cable, a faulty charging station, a temporary queue.Scaling up challenges
However, when scaling up, the challenges become more complex. A site with 50 trucks is not 50 times a private vehicle. The power to connect is counted in megawatts, the connection to the grid requires significant delays and investments, and the consumption peaks weigh on the bill as well as on the grid.Cost implications
The consequences are directly readable in the accounts. On the investment side, the trajectory is no longer linear: beyond a certain threshold, it is necessary to strengthen the connection, to adapt the site, to add power management equipment, sometimes buffer batteries. Each threshold crossed triggers a new level of expenses, and it is the last electrified vehicles that are the most expensive to equip.Infrastructure limitations
In most industrial revolutions, mass production lowers costs. Batteries are a good example: their price has strongly decreased with volumes. But this learning curve concerns the product, not the infrastructure surrounding it. However, the charging infrastructure does not benefit from the same effects. Each additional vehicle requires power, space, maintenance, and operating time, in proportions that can grow faster than the fleet.Innovative solutions
Existing solutions provide real progress: night charging at the depot, ultra-fast charging, battery swapping, hydrogen. But each remains within the logic inherited from the thermal, where one stops, fills up, and departs. Night charging requires very equipped depots. Battery swapping requires standards and heavy logistics. Hydrogen requires an entire supply chain to be built.EVIAS redefines charging
And if we stopped the vehicle operations to recharge? This is the idea that gave birth to EVIAS: recharge when the vehicle is in operation, where it is already driving, parking, or working. The solution is based on ground charging, by conduction. A robotic arm automatically deploys and finds the rail location on its own in the road: the driver has no gestures to make.Rethinking the model
The electrification of professional fleets is therefore not simply about multiplying charging stations. It requires rethinking how recharging is integrated into operations and their economic model. The vehicles are arriving, the World Auto Show is proof of that. It remains to rethink what powers them.
