Electrify your fleet: an action checklist

Congratulations! By diving into what it takes to convert your fleet to electric vehicles, you’re setting your organization on a path to a more sustainable future — and potential savings in both cost and efficiency.

As you explore the EV Fleets course, you’ll find lots of detail on how to buy, charge, maintain and understand electric vehicles. Here’s a quick look at how to put all this information into action and electrify your fleet.

10 steps to electrify your fleet

1. Start learning. That’s why you’re here! Our program is designed to give you the confidence to make the right decisions along the way, from understanding how electric vehicles work to calculating costs of ownership and setting up charging to power your fleet.
2. Commit to the process! Once you have a good understanding of what’s involved from a time, cost and resource standpoint, you’ll want to ensure your organization is willing to make the change and get everyone on board. For help with that, check out our 10 business reasons to go electric.
3. Build your team. Depending on the scale and complexity of your effort, you will likely want to bring in a consultant, start working directly with your automaker’s fleet team or a fleet leasing company, or seek out a charging infrastructure expert to guide you through the process. You can find lots of Electric Autonomy Canada trusted partners in our supplier marketplace.
4. Evaluate your situation. Can EVs do what you need them to? In Lesson 3: How to start your electric fleet transition, you’ll learn to do an assessment to figure out if the current vehicles on the market can serve the needs of your business, and which routes to test them on. You’ll also learn about total cost of ownership for EVs versus combustion vehicles.
5. Read up on financial incentives. There are government rebates and other support available to help with capital costs. 
6. Plan your charging infrastructure. If you need more than a few charging stations at a warehouse, this can be a big step. Once your vehicles are selected, start any design work, contract for installation, contact your utility and order your hardware.
7. .Order your vehicles. Deliveries can take time, but you’ll want to ensure your charging stations are ready to go when the vehicles arrive.
8. Train your drivers. Refine your best practices for drivers and set up any policies needed around compliance, as well as details like how to reimburse employees who charge at home. Our Top 15 EV questions covers many popular questions and debunks some fo the myths of EVs.
9. Hit the road! Run a pilot and see how EVs work for your business. 
10. Get in touch. You can contact the creators of this course at fleets@electricautonomy.ca for any questions along the way. Let us know your experience and contribute back to this community.

But first, get to know how electric vehicles work and how they’re different from internal combustion engine cars and trucks.

Complete the course by tapping the “Save Progress” button at the end of each article. Once you’ve reached 100 per cent complete you’ll receive an EV Fleets Certificate.