The electric car market may be being largely driven by fleets and businesses, but chargepoint operators are vital in ensuring this momentum continues apace as the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel sales looms ever nearer.
That’s according to Tom Rowlands, managing director of Global EV Solutions at Corpay, fuel card provider Allstar’s parent firm.
“Fleets are driving growth in the UK’s new EV market”, Rowlands points out. While recognising the “hard work” going on behind the scenes to facilitate this, Rowlands cautions that “from an infrastructure and charging perspective, we collectively must be doing more to reward fleets”, adding: “incentivisation is the key”.
With just one in 10 private customers opting for an electric car in 2024, salary-sacrifice and corporate buyers are behind the majority of the EV registrations. These are set to become the only type of new car purchase permitted in just five years’ time, with increasingly stringent targets and looming fines facing car makers as that deadline approaches.
While the proportion of private EV buyers will undoubtedly rise as 2030 approaches, for now the mix is very much skewed towards businesses. And whatever the proportion of private versus corporate registrations, many fleet and business drivers spend far more time on the road than private motorists. This makes it imperative that chargepoint operators (CPOs) provide attractive solutions, both from a cost perspective and a convenience one: as well as price sensitivity around kilowatt hours being key, firms are acutely aware that staff spending time searching for a free charger or battling an unreliable one can have a large an impact on a company’s bottom line.
“Enhanced networks, ultra-rapid charging, and cost-effective pricing” are within chargepoint operators’ arsenal, says Rowlands, who highlights that Allstar is already offering price promotions with its partner, charging firm Be.EV.
With 90% of filling stations and 53,000 EV chargers accepting its cards, Allstar is well-positioned to straddle the planned electric transition. Rowlands says his firm “looks forward to welcoming similar partnerships with CPOs to provide charging discounts, as they represent significant savings for fleets”, highlighting that the UK saw a 38% surge in the number of chargepoints installed in 2024, with an extra 20,000 plugs added to the network.
