Support available to help small businesses reap the benefit of Electric Vehicles

As part of Warwickshire County Council’s longstanding commitment to the environment, a range of support is offered to help businesses to adopt electric vehicles. Seb Burch, Strategy and Policy Officer, WCC Transport and Highways, explain how rapidly evolving technology is making EVs increasingly practical for businesses to deploy. 

Electric vehicles are becoming an ever more popular choice for fleets across the UK, with almost three quarters (71%) of van fleets planning to invest in depot charge points in 2023^.

EVs are better for the environment and health, save businesses money on both fuel and maintenance, and support businesses to develop a socially conscious and green brand image. While transitioning to EVs can require some thought, Warwickshire County Council (WCC) is committed to supporting businesses to make this move. 

To date, WCC has installed 79 chargepoints across Warwickshire, all twin-headed, allowing 158 vehicles to charge at once. With future funding now secured, the council hopes to step-up the provision of charging infrastructure in a big way. 

What are we doing to help: 

A key challenge for businesses looking to move to an all-electric fleet is access to charging infrastructure. This is particularly tricky for businesses where staff take their vehicles home with them.  

Fortunately, Warwickshire County Council is primed to meet this growing need. Having been allocated more than £3.2m from the government’s LEVI fund, WCC is committed to providing and maintaining a reliable network of public chargepoints across the entirety of Warwickshire. There is a particular need to provide chargepoints close to residents without off-street parking. This will help staff to charge overnight so vehicles are ready for work in the morning. 

WCC will try to provide a portfolio approach of standard, fast and rapid chargepoints across the region, as well as experimenting with lamp column charging and pop-up solutions in densely populated areas of the county. 

Businesses have also expressed worries about the range limitations for electric vehicles, and whether the vehicles are up to the challenges businesses throw at them. Thankfully, the EV vehicle market is maturing rapidly, and vehicles are increasingly able to do more than 250 miles on a single charge, with many vans hitting 200 miles range too. 

This makes the use of electric vehicles much more practical and appealing to businesses. Through our roll out of EV infrastructure, any range anxiety will soon be a thing of the past.

While many of these challenges are being addressed, we are looking for businesses to support WCC in delivering EV infrastructure that works for them. 

How businesses can get involved: 

• Contact us at electricvehicles@warwickshire.gov.uk to talk about how our on-street rollout might support your business to move to EVs.
• If you have staff driving EVs, or are about to adopt EVs, please ask your staff to complete our ‘Request a chargepoint location’ survey on our website now. This will help us to ensure that we are installing public charge points in the right locations for those driving vehicles.
• Talk to us about the infrastructure your business needs. We can work with you to develop a plan for installing electric vehicle charging infrastructure at your workplace.

Cllr Jan Matecki, Warwickshire County Council Portfolio Holder for Transport and Planning said: “This is fantastic news for everyone in Warwickshire who owns an electric vehicle or is thinking of buying one. This successful application for the earliest LEVI funding tranche demonstrates our firm commitment to encourage and facilitate a switch to electric vehicles as part of our on-going efforts to tackle climate change and to improve the health of our residents. 

“We know that more people are keen to move away from fossil-fuel powered vehicles and that our role in this important shift is to provide increased charging infrastructure that makes this switch both possible and desirable.  This funding is an important next step that enables us to do that.”