Electric Vehicle Fleet Telematics & Tracking

Merchants Fleet|Fleet Electrification|
Electric Vehicle Fleet Telematics and Tracking

What Is Telematics?

Also known as fleet tracking or GPS vehicle tracking, telematics is now an essential management tool for many commercial and government fleets. At Merchants, we can help you collect high-quality data and analytics from your electric vehicle fleet. Our fleet consulting team can help you set up a dashboard to easily monitor vehicle and driver behavior, system diagnostics, and more.

Why EV Telematics?

Telematics data and electric vehicle (EV) analytics allow fleet managers to make more informed decisions For example, after an EV pilot, fleet managers would have a clear picture of what other gas-powered vehicles are prime for EV adoption. By tracking miles driven, geographical coverage, trip and route data, and more, fleet managers can test EVs to find the best makes and models for their fleet.

As you move to EVs, additional telematics data is available, such as battery usage, which can help answer questions about range and how it compares to gas-powered vehicles in your fleet. Installing telematics with EV-specific capabilities allows you to:

  • Oversee Energy Consumption and Energy Generation
  • Improve Driving Habits
  • Monitor the Battery’s Charging Status
  • Manage the “Where and When” of Charging

Fuel and Energy Usage Report

With an energy usage report, fleet managers can view data for their entire fleet, as well as data for each individual vehicle. Fleet managers can compare energy consumption, performance, and distance traveled between EVs and internal combustion vehicles. For EVs, you can look at how much electricity you needed to charge your vehicles and the price of the energy. If your fleet has any PHEVs, you can obtain a report on battery vs. fuel usage. If the battery in a PHEV isn’t consistently charged, it will run on fuel like an internal combustion vehicle.

Get the Whole Picture

Merchants Fleet can help you install and activate telematics and tracking system on vehicles that are not connected capable, and our Consulting Services team identifies fleet trends and recommends adjustments to improve performance. Our experts help optimize your fleet and increase productivity. In addition to monitoring trip data, vehicle systems information, and driver behavior, we can also provide current and saved snapshots to help you manage expenses, utilization, productivity, and safety.

We can help identify key areas of improvement for cost savings and safety and assist your EV fleet ROI by supplying you with recommendations. Fleet managers can set up notifications for themselves and drivers when an EV battery is critically low and needs to be charged, when a plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV) is running only on fuel, or when a driver is charging during peak rate electricity times. Peak electricity times will vary by location.

Advanced Vehicle Data

Merchant Fleets telematics solution sends, receives, and stores information about each vehicle. You can easily monitor emissions, speed and idle times, system diagnostics, and much more. By using this advanced data, you can view similarities and differences between your internal combustion and electric vehicles.

TotalConnect Connected Fleet

The future of fleet is here and it’s time to take your business to the next level. TotalConnect provides a clear view of your fleet data using hardware already built into most modern vehicles, allowing confident action to be taken on your fleet data insights. Get state-of-the-art analytics to support business operations and manage your vehicles and drivers in a meaningful, data-driven way. TotalConnect can help guide your EV procurement decisions, reduce TCO, and generate revenue.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the benefits of fleet telematics?

Telematics is an aftermarket GPS-tracking device that’s installed in a vehicle, which provides added insight into more detailed aspects of data. By monitoring trip data, vehicle systems information, and driver behavior, you can identify key areas of improvement to drive cost savings and improve safety. Some companies have even seen a reduction in their insurance premiums. Many modern vehicles have telematics hardware included from the factory. Commonly referred to as “connected vehicles,” this hardware provides the same near real-time analytics support and has a reduced risk of device tampering. Connected fleet solutions integrate data from multiple original equipment manufacturers and telematics solutions, easily scaling with your growing fleet needs.

What are some other aspects in which I could use telematics?

In addition to the advantages we just mentioned, telematics allows you to see where your vehicles are in real-time — and how long they stay at a particular location.

How do you know if a vehicle has connected technology?

There are more than 13 million connected vehicles in the United States, and over 90% of new cars sold include this technology. While it’s easy to estimate that most 2020 MY vehicles and newer are connected capable, we’d be happy to review your fleet and pinpoint which vehicles can take advantage of connected technology and where you still need a legacy telematics plug-in device.

What happens if a vehicle loses its telematics connection?

In the case of a network outage or other technical issue, the system may temporarily stop transmitting data. However, many telematics systems have offline capabilities, where data can be stored locally until the connection is restored. The system will then transmit the stored data to the server.