AI and machine learning are allowing cities and regions to create digital twins of their communities, offering insights into how a particular vehicle will perform on a hilly route or in extreme heat. These are the kinds of metrics that can influence the operations of electric vehicles (EV) and help to ensure public-sector organizations and others purchase the right vehicle for the right use, and pair it with the appropriate charger.
“One of the things that really matter to a fleet, the key underlying issues are cost per mile, fleet productivity, is the fleet up and running? Is it running efficiently?” said Dan Hilson, CEO for BetterFleet, a maker of fleet management technology that includes digital modeling for EVs. “The whole system is built to that, how do we optimize cost per mile?”
BetterFleet’s digital twin can “essentially take a lot of data around the specific region, the actual depots that these vehicles are coming and going to, the chargers, the vehicles, really able to emulate to about 1 percent accuracy what those vehicles will be doing once they’re deployed,” Hilson said.
That AI fleet management technology is now being used by the city of Roseville, Calif., a suburb of Sacramento which is transitioning its city and transit fleets to EVs. Roseville operates a fleet of 41 buses and about 1,000 city vehicles. The city’s electric fleet includes five electric commuter buses, six Ford Lightning pickups and 13 Chevrolet Bolts, Brandy LeBeau, Roseville fleet manager, said.
The BetterFleet technology used in Roseville is being funded with a grant from the California Energy Commission, aimed at accelerating the adoption of easy-to-use charging solutions that can respond to dynamic grid signals. The city plans to continue transitioning vehicles to electric models to satisfy state compliance requirements related to fleets, achieving a complete EV transition by 2040.
Today, Roseville has nine Level 3 DC fast chargers and five Level 2 chargers, with plans to increase its charging infrastructure to 71 chargers.
Total cost of ownership is one of the key metrics the city looks to when making purchasing decisions, LeBeau said, which includes the purchase price, maintenance, fuel or energy, and overall life cycle costs.
The city also considers how intensely the vehicle will be used, and its energy efficiency, which can all be modeled by technology.
“Other important measures are emissions impact, vehicle downtime and availability, maintenance costs per mile or hour, and safety performance,” LeBeau said via email. “By watching these metrics, the city can make sure the fleet is reliable, cost-effective, and able to meet both operational and sustainability goals.”
The technology from BetterFleet offers real-time data into energy use, each vehicle’s operational readiness and charging infrastructure. The platform can estimate remaining charging time for each vehicle, and predict its range, officials said, helping the city’s staff to make better-informed dispatch decisions.
The digital twin helps to inform what type of chargers an organization should purchase and how many, based on the vehicles being operated, their battery size and other factors.
“All those things impact total cost of ownership,” Hilson said. “Because if you go and get DC fast chargers and get a grid upgrade, that could add a lot [to] the total cost of ownership of your fleet.”
Electric and autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is opening the door to new ways of managing fleets, aided in part by new fleet management technologies that are able to troubleshoot, gather and analyze vast amounts of data.
“Mega-trends” like EVs, AVs and AI are disrupting transportation and fleet management, Hilson said, by “opening up opportunities for efficiencies.”
“So whether that’s fuel efficiency, maintenance efficiency, downtime avoidance, safety and insurance, revenue management,” he said. “All these things to effectively do a job, whether that’s delivering people on the bus.”
Roseville, LeBeau said, “places a strong emphasis on cost-savings when evaluating electric vehicles.”
“While EVs can offer lower fuel and maintenance costs over time compared to traditional vehicles, the city also carefully evaluates total cost of ownership to ensure that any investment aligns with operational needs and provides long-term value,” she said. “Cost-savings are an important factor, but they are balanced with reliability, performance and the ability of the vehicle to meet specific service requirements.”
