Charging point strategies for electric commercial vehicles

Charging point infrastructure is a vital component of running electric vehicles (EV). Commercial EV users have particular demands that contrast markedly with private drivers requirements, who have been the main target of public charge point infrastructure development to date. The paper outlines results of research with both small/medium businesses with in-house operations (requiring some vehicles) and commercial operators with significant own-account or hire- and-reward fleets. It includes a summary of technical requirements of EV for commercial use, and draws conclusions on what is the optimal charging point infrastructure technology match. It makes a series of recommendations on how best to support EV to: - serve different types of commercial organisation; - meet current and future conventions on modes and type (connector), most relevant to commercial electric vehicles; - where and how to ensure access to charging point infrastructure if facilitated (at different scales and locations, including shared access); - other support for the EV business case (through fiscal/policy on parking, road charging and low emission zones).