Electrification of commercial fleets is becoming increasingly necessary as technology advances, and state & local governments start to regulate the use of zero-emission vehicles. Governmental agencies such as airports have emerged as early candidates to adopt these new fleet regulations as most airports own and operate substantial fleets as part of everyday operations. Recently, the San Diego International Airport became the first airport to deploy over 30 shuttles, making it the largest fleet of commercial electric shuttles of any airport in North America to date. The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority’s chosen operator ACE Parking purchased the shuttle fleet on behalf of the airport. It will consist of 29 zero-emission Endera vehicles, coupled with 4 Proterra Catalyst transit buses, which will be in use by the end of the year.
Many fleet owners/operators believe the challenge of converting to an electric shuttle fleet ends at selecting and paying for the right shuttle fleet to fit their operations. However, fleet electrification is significantly more complicated than just swapping out gas engines for electric ones.
To be successful in your conversion, many other factors play critical roles in ensuring that fleet operators and airport executives understand and embrace the electrification process. Through our deployment with the San Diego International Airport, we recommended following these four considerations for undergoing an electric fleet conversion.
1. Outlining Objectives
As with most large projects, it’s tough to get all parties on the same page and align with their objectives. This is essential as you create your electrification plan. ACE Parking and the San Diego International Airport have operated with common goals revolving around sustainability and pushing innovation in the space, especially with the California Zero Emissions Shuttle Regulation deadline slowly approaching.
But identifying what they wanted as an outcome is tough when you don’t know what is available. We know that electric vehicles yield massive improvements in efficiency over their combustion engine counterparts. (And if you still aren’t convinced, read our recent blog about the future of electric fleet management here.) Even with such improvements, vehicles vary when it comes to operational improvement. ACE and the SDCRAA had to evaluate the opportunity to innovate with transforming their sizable passenger and employee shuttle fleet to electric based on weighing feasibility and cost. Endera aided in providing key information and analysis along the way to ensure the cost of a new fleet yielded the desired results. These results were:
Allow for the same useable in-service availability of the fleet without increasing the size of the fleet
Reduce downtime and costs of maintenance
Improve rider-experience with the quality of the vehicles
Maintain the same high service level standards (on-time performance & headways) as before with the previous LPG and CNG fleet.
Ultimately, our client found the right balance of value and performance by selecting 29 Endera vehicles of two distinct sizes: 13 Model B5’s and 16 Model D2’s, which allowed for 20 and 25 passengers, respectively. This mix would meet the desired passenger service levels with ease. Each unit’s fast charge capabilities enabled ACE to avoid increasing the number of buses needed to meet their operational goals.
Therefore, take a hard look at your operation in terms of desired budget, routes, operational goals, and customer feedback to determine what changes would be acceptable to evolve your operation from gas to electric. Ultimately, both the client and the supplier must work together to analyze the opportunity and find the right fit for the specific operation. This should drive your sourcing strategy.
Some key questions to consider include:
What are the requirements of our organization?
What are the service standards our customers require?
What infrastructure do we need?
What size fleet is best for our desired operational goals?
Where can we change aspects of our operation to accommodate for the change in gas to electric?
What are our budgetary goals?
2. Understand Your Requirements and Operational Data while keeping an open mind
To tackle a problem with so many unknowns, education became the most critical factor in the process. A majority of operators will try and apply operational conditions geared for gas-powered fleets to electric and ultimately, it is not the most efficient approach.
At San Diego International Airport, we worked together with ACE to map out and design a new operating structure, using the all-electric shuttles and the new charging and range requirements to meet its operational goals. The new system focused on reducing dead-head miles (non-operational, non-revenue) and allowed the airport to keep its fleet size.
This included changing a headway-oriented operation to a scheduled service operation, which is more conducive to planning each trip and each mile utilized by an in-service shuttle. Likewise, the charging station depot’s positioning to allow quick and easy access to power near the operating area helped reduce the number of deadhead miles necessary to access service locations. Finally, developing training and dispatching plans helped round out the new approach based on the monitoring and controlling the actions of the drivers (which play a pivotal role in ensuring their driving behavior optimizes range) as well as developing driver meal/rest break schedules which coincide with optimal opportunity charging opportunities for the vehicles.
To accomplish this, Endera worked with ACE to gather and analyze critical operational data ranging from: headways, passenger loads, driver service hours, driver schedules, driver tendencies and behaviors, road traffic analysis, and management practices and actions. By understanding these key categories, the transition from gas to electric can become not only more straightforward but ultimately beneficial for your customers and your bottom line by going electric.
3. Work to Understand & Plan Local Infrastructure
So you have new electric shuttles, great. You figured out how to restructure your operation to support electric vehicles, even better. Now, the real fun begins! Infrastructure is the critical element that dictates the success of any electric vehicle deployment. Without the right infrastructure and the right plan, deploying a fleet of electric vehicles can prove difficult to manage once the vehicles are delivered.
Therefore, certain questions need answering to plan for the success of your electric fleet implementation effectively.
Where are you going to store your buses?
Where are you going to charge them?
Is there enough power on your grid to charge them?
What types of infrastructure are necessary to charge electric buses?
Whom do I engage to aid in this process?
These questions are more critical to your electrification’s viability than the total cost of shuttles and your time planning combined. For example, local utilities must be able to support the high kilowatt per hour capacity to charge your vehicles, especially for substantially large fleets. You must also ensure that charging stations can be connected with the existing power grid. For ACE Parking at San Diego International, this process was by far the biggest challenge to work out.
Endera took the planning process’s cost and burden on their shoulders by partnering and advising ACE on planning and deploying the right amount of chargers for their operation. Our relationships with local utilities allowed us to get the conversation going early and often. By coordinating conversations with SDG&E and informing our clients of the subsidy programs available to their specific use case, ACE and San Diego Airport Staff were able to make informed decisions based on the access to funding, available power, open land to place the charging depot stations, and ultimately when to charge.
The main lesson is to engage your clients, understand the constraints present in terms of infrastructure (such as availability to required power in underdeveloped areas, access to enough land in major metropolitan areas, etc.), and determining how a public-private partnership could be created to ensure both the local utility and your fleet needs are met and successful long term.
4. Capitalize on Subsidies
Electrification is expensive--but not impossible. The cost of electric vehicles, both commercial and noncommercial, are continually decreasing, and with coming regulations and increased volume of manufacturing, the trend should continue for the foreseeable future. However, suppose you are considering making the switch to electric vehicles now. In that case, there are currently hundreds of millions of dollars available through state and federal grant programs that will make your transition even more affordable.
Endera worked tirelessly to gather and educate ACE and the San Diego Airport about the various subsidies available locally and on the state and federal levels. As a result, ACE Parking and San Diego International Airport successfully reduced the total cost of its new fleet due in large part to leveraging the available subsidies amounting to a savings of over $3 million.
We highly recommend exploring subsidiaries available to you in your city or state to help support your purchase. or customize one around your specific solution. For example, at San Diego International Airport, Endera and ACE worked directly with San Diego Gas and Electric to evaluate the fleet’s needs to ensure the airport’s new charging stations would be considered for the program. This collaboration significantly reduced the chargers’ overall cost and updated some of San Diego’s grid to support electric charging in more future locations.
Fleets may also run into trouble when sourcing the necessary capital to complete their electrification. While electric shuttles are the new industry standard in transportation, your bank may not be ready to finance your purchase. Calculating an electric vehicle’s residual value may prove challenging to smaller or local banks with little exposure to innovative zero-emission vehicles. The value is essential for them to take on risk and calculate the total cost of ownership for your vehicles. Endera works with large and small banks to provide capital and financing to help solve that major hurdle for fleet owners/operators looking to make the switch. Endera engaged directly on ACE Parking’s behalf to get the most favorable rates with their preferred lenders while providing industry knowledge and comfortability with the new electric shuttle product, which helped put the financial institutions' risk fears to rest.
In summary, having a partner that can guide you and your firm's understanding of the new electric vehicle space, aid in developing and meeting attainable goals for your operation, analyzing the current state and determining future state, coordinate & plan infrastructure, and ultimately leverage subsidies and provide financing where others cannot is pivotal to successfully make the switch to electric.