NovaCHARGE, a provider of utility-grade hardware and software solutions for charging electric vehicles, has expanded its fleet management software. A new software solution is available for quick-turn electric fleets expressly driving operational readiness, as well as lowering total cost of ownership, easing the transition to electric mobility.
The company’s Fleet Director has three core functions: vehicle management, charging station locator and worker management. When addressed in combination, it solves the problems of getting the right vehicle on the right charger at the right time, predicting necessary manpower and efficiently dispatching drivers to move vehicles as needed, and reducing capital costs by leveraging existing offsite charging such as EV charging hubs.
Directing efficient utilization of resources for fleet managers helps to exceed desired quick-turn metrics and lower cost of ownership. It can be implemented as a stand-alone solution or in concert with NovaCHARGE’s full suite of EV charging solutions, including the ChargeUP charging platform management system.
“Our direct work with key fleet customers has given us insights into the needs and challenges impacting operational readiness for quick-turn EV fleets,” says Oscar Rodriguez, company chairman and CEO. “We’ve realized that EV fleet solutions need to change to solve real-world operational issues. We’ve developed the Fleet Director SaaS solution to enable quick-turn fleet customers to enhance the ROI of EV fleets, by optimizing the combination of three key value points — EV charging, vehicle SOC (security operations center) and the labor needed to manage logistics.”
NovaCHARGE’s fleet software platform is designed to work with a broad array of charging stations, including non-Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP)-compliant and Tesla chargers, and any EV.
Fleet Director is aware of all locations, chargers, vehicles and workers that have been registered within the system and uses that information to assign jobs and tasks to available workers with a goal of ensuring optimal labor workflow to get all under-charged vehicles optimally charged. Fleet Director also provides flexible configuration settings, mobile app capability, dashboard reporting and 24/7/365 “eyes on network” coverage, alerting and driver support.
Through open APIs (application programming interfaces), NovaCHARGE’s fleet management suite can fully integrate with the tools fleet operators already use to run their operations such as third-party telematics, route planning, dispatch and maintenance systems.