As the transport and logistics sector accelerates towards the 2030 deadline for the end of new petrol and diesel vehicle sales, more and more organisations are transitioning to electric fleets. Yet for many fleet managers, the practical question underneath that transition is a simple one: what is EV charging, and how does it actually work?
In this guide we explain what EV charging is, how it works, the different types of charger, and how quickly each one charges, what it costs, and what all of this means when you are running not one electric vehicle but a whole fleet of them.
In this guide:
EV charging is the process of refuelling an electric vehicle by plugging it into an electrical power source. Instead of filling a tank with petrol or diesel, you draw electricity from the grid and store it in the vehicle's battery pack, which then powers the electric motor.
For a fleet, EV charging is more than a driver task; it becomes part of your operational planning. How and where your vehicles charge affects their availability, your running costs, and how much vehicle downtime you have to absorb, which is why it pays to understand the fundamentals before you scale up.
At its simplest, EV charging works by moving electricity from the grid into the vehicle's battery, but there is an important conversion happening along the way. The electricity grid supplies alternating current (AC), whereas an EV battery stores energy as direct current (DC). Something has to convert one into the other.
With slower AC chargers, that conversion happens inside the vehicle. The AC power passes into the car, and the vehicle's onboard charger (OBC) converts it to DC before it reaches the battery. With rapid DC chargers, the charging unit itself does the conversion, sending DC power straight to the battery and bypassing the onboard charger, which is what allows much faster charging speeds.
The speed at which a battery charges also depends on its own limits, not just the charger. The vehicle's battery management system (BMS) governs how much power the battery can safely accept at any moment, protecting battery health and longevity over the life of the vehicle.
An EV charging station works much like a petrol pump, except it dispenses electricity instead of fuel. The process runs through a straightforward sequence:
EV chargers are grouped by their power output, measured in kilowatts (kW), which determines how quickly they add range. There are three broad categories.
|
Type |
Power output |
Typical charge time |
Where you find it |
|
Slow |
2.3 kW to 6 kW |
Roughly 8 to 15 hours for a full charge, ideal overnight |
Home wallboxes, depots, on-street residential |
|
Fast |
7 kW to 22 kW |
Adds around 25 to 30 miles of range per hour at 7 kW, up to 75 to 80 miles per hour at 22 kW |
Workplaces, supermarkets, public car parks |
|
Rapid and ultra-rapid |
50 kW to 350+ kW |
10% to 80% in roughly 15 to 40 minutes |
Motorway services, urban charging hubs |
For a fleet, matching the charger type to the duty cycle is what keeps vehicles available. Vehicles that return to base each night suit slower depot charging, whereas high-mileage vehicles that run back-to-back shifts may depend on rapid charging to stay on the road. We look at this in more detail in our guide to charging your electric fleet vehicles.
There are three main places to charge an electric vehicle, and for a fleet the right mix usually involves all three:
Most modern public chargers follow a simple plug-and-play process. While some networks require an app or a membership card, the general steps are:
The cost of charging an EV depends on where you charge and when. Charging at a depot or at home, especially overnight on a lower off-peak electricity tariff, is almost always the cheapest option. Public rapid charging is more expensive per unit of energy, reflecting the convenience and the higher-powered equipment involved. For a fleet, the picture is about total cost rather than a single price. Electricity tariffs, charging times, driver behaviour, and battery efficiency all feed into the running cost per mile.
As a guide, home or depot charging on an off-peak EV tariff currently costs around 8-9p per kWh, compared to roughly 54p per kWh for public standard and fast charging (up to 49 kW) and around 79p per kWh for public rapid and ultra-rapid charging (50 kW and above), equivalent to approximately 16 pence and 24 pence per mile respectively for an average-efficiency EV (Zapmap, mid-2026).
By contrast, a diesel van at current UK pump prices works out in the region of 15-17 pence per mile. Depot and off-peak home charging therefore remain substantially cheaper than diesel, often by a factor of two or more per mile. Public rapid charging, however, has risen to the point where it can now cost as much as or more than diesel per mile, which is precisely why maximising depot and off-peak charging, rather than relying on the public rapid network, is central to the cost case for going electric.
Charging a single car is straightforward. Charging a fleet is an operational discipline. When several vehicles need to be ready each morning, charging has to be planned around duty cycles, electricity tariffs, grid capacity at your depot, and the routes each vehicle runs.
Key considerations for fleet charging include:
Getting this right is one of the biggest practical hurdles in any move to electric, which is why it helps to approach it as part of a broader fleet decarbonisation strategy rather than a standalone task.
Putting an effective charging strategy into practice is difficult, particularly for a business that has only recently begun its transition. It is for this reason that we at MICHELIN Connected Fleet have developed EV transition and management solutions to support every stage of the journey.
Using your existing journey data, our tools help you identify which vehicles are ready to electrify, keep an eye on each vehicle's battery level and range, view public charge points with their availability and cost, and set alerts that remind drivers to recharge at the right time. That visibility helps you reduce downtime, control costs, and give your drivers the confidence to run their EVs day to day.
If you would like to understand how we can support your fleet's transition to electric, then be sure to make an enquiry into our services today.