EV Fleet Training

How to training EV charger teams?

‍

Ground Ops

‍

Ground operators are typically responsible for having vehicles ready for the next morning and addressing simple issues during active charging sessions. They often work in two or three shifts and handle various tasks around depots. As the eyes on the ground, they play a crucial role in ensuring high throughput by executing many repetitive tasks.

‍

A common example is depots where the fleet charges multiple vehicles per charger overnight. This results in an n:1 ratio between vehicles and chargers. The ground operator coordinates the vehicles and the charging sessions during the night. Therefore, training them on charger monitoring and alert functionalities is vital to maintaining high uptime and vehicle throughput.

‍

From our perspective, these are the most important topics for ground operators:

• EV charger monitoring software
• Charger displays and plug events
• Vehicle and driver interfaces
• Alert codes and error messages
• Operational goals and KPIs

‍

Technical Staff and Asset Managers

‍

This training is the most complex and requires prior experience in hardware, power electronics, and software. Only a few engineers have this ideal mix of expertise. We've seen talent from the telecommunications, data center, and energy industries transition into the EV charging sector. However, knowledge gaps can still make training more challenging.

‍

While technical staff might not need to fix or build hardware or software components, they must be capable of having in-depth conversations with partners and vendors. For example, technical EV charging staff need to evaluate charger interoperability issues with vehicles and back-office software to hold vendors accountable.

‍

Although there are some training programs available, most training occurs on the job and through leveraging the experience of others in the industry. Additionally, we typically advise spending a significant amount of time with new vendors to understand their products, potential challenges, and technical issues.

‍

Management

‍

Charging operations are costly, and you’ll have to answer many questions from financial officers, executives, and other management. Many of them may have different, non-technical backgrounds. Even if they have been in the fleet industry for years, they might have never seen or used an EV charger.

‍

It is crucial to involve them early in both decision-making and training processes. The better they understand the complexities of EV charger O&M, the more they will support your decisions, especially when utilizing sophisticated software platforms and O&M services.

‍

From our perspective, these are the most important topics for executives and higher management:

• Costs of downtime and the importance of active monitoring and O&M
• Costs of 24/7 monitoring (internal vs. external)
• Costs of software tools vs. inoperable chargers
• Total monthly energy costs and savings through optimization
• Soft cost savings when introducing smart tools in EV charger operations

‍

Driver

‍

EV drivers have different roles in different companies. In most cases, they don’t interact much with charger operations or vehicle readiness. Most fleets assign the plug-in event as a new task for drivers, requiring them to park the vehicle next to an available charger, plug it in, and initiate the charging session. The driver typically has little to do after this.

‍

Some fleet operators face issues with vehicles not being plugged in correctly, resulting in insufficient charging by morning. This raises questions about how much training drivers need. Since drivers often change employers frequently and have long workdays, fleet operators are understandably concerned.

‍

From our perspective, these are the most important topics for drivers:

• How to initiate the start of a charging session
• How to verify that the charger is active and charging
• How to confirm that the vehicle is receiving power from the charger
• Who to contact when noticing any abnormalities

‍

We offer more guidance for EV charger training and can build programs for larger teams.