Australia's EV fleet transition will be won or lost at the depot
When Schneider Electric launched its On-the-Go Learning Centre, the aim was simple: take practical training directly to electricians, contractors and customers across Australia.
The mobile demonstration centre is housed in a 2.5-tonne trailer and carries the energy technologies our teams would usually showcase at a fixed site. This year, we set out to tow it around the country with a fully electric vehicle.
By the end of the tour, the vehicle will have covered around 25,000 kilometres across cities, regional centres and country roads. It has handled steep climbs, long highway stretches and charging sites never designed for an EV towing a large trailer.
The journey has made one thing clear: fleet electrification depends on far more than the vehicle. Route planning, charging access, depot capacity and energy management all shape whether the transition works in practice.
Too often, fleet electrification is treated as a procurement exercise. In reality, it is an energy infrastructure project that affects how an organisation operates, consumes energy and plans for growth.
The vehicle is only the beginning
Our roadshow is a demanding use case. Towing a heavy trailer reduces range, especially on highways and hills. Some charging sites are difficult to access without unhitching, while chargers listed as available do not always work.
On one regional journey, a public charger failed repeatedly. The team adapted, charged overnight from a standard outlet and continued the next morning.
That delay was manageable because there was a contingency. For fleets working to delivery windows, patient appointments or public transport schedules, the impact could be far greater.
Organisations making the transition to zero-emission vehicles should therefore begin with the work their vehicles need to perform. A nursing fleet on predictable metropolitan routes has different needs and demands from regional service vehicles or heavy trucks travelling long distances.
Distance matters, but so do payload, operating hours, route predictability, driving conditions and parking time.
A pilot should test the whole operating model, not simply whether an EV can complete a route. It should establish whether the fleet can maintain productivity once charging, driver schedules, site capacity and disruptions are taken into account.
The real costs sit behind the charger
The charger is only the visible part of fleet electrification beyond the vehicle. Behind it sit the cabling, switchboard capacity, grid connection and digital systems needed to manage power demand.
Without a longer-term plan, infrastructure built for a few vehicles can quickly become expensive or inadequate as the fleet grows. But additional grid capacity is not always the first answer.
An integrated energy technology approach brings electrification, automation and digitalisation together. Digital load management can track changing site demand, available solar generation, tariffs and vehicle priorities, then automatically adjust charging to make better use of existing capacity.
A vehicle parked overnight can charge gradually, while one needed urgently can move to the front of the queue when there are demand constraints. By coordinating chargers with the wider electrical system, organisations can reduce peak demand, avoid unnecessary upgrades and build infrastructure that can scale with the fleet.
Reliability will determine confidence
Australia’s public charging network has improved, particularly between major population centres; that is something to be acknowledged and the progress celebrated. However, regional travel remains less predictable, and many charging locations were designed for passenger cars rather than commercial vehicles, vans or trailers.
Investment in public charging must continue, but most fleets cannot rely on it as their primary operating model.
Depot and destination charging provide greater control over availability, cost and scheduling. Public charging should support those arrangements, particularly for longer or irregular journeys.
Getting the infrastructure right matters beyond the performance of an individual fleet. If electric buses, healthcare vehicles or delivery fleets repeatedly miss services because they cannot charge when required, public confidence in electrification will suffer.
When charging infrastructure falls short, the vehicle can be seen as the problem, even when it is performing as expected.
Plan for the fleet you will have
Our roadshow has shown that an electric vehicle can manage a demanding journey through a mix of metropolitan and regional conditions. It has also shown that successful electrification depends on decisions made long before the driver starts the car.
Organisations need to understand their routes, operating schedules and electrical capacity before vehicles arrive. They need to plan for the fleet they expect to operate in five or 10 years, rather than installing enough infrastructure for today.
Australia’s fleet transition may be visible on the road, but its success will be built at the depot.
