How Your Electric Vehicle Fleet Company Can Overcome Data Silos

Electric vehicle fleets are data rich assets, but fleet owners do not always have easy access to their vehicle data. The data is often locked with the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). While the end user maybe given access through apps and other services, the fleet owners are overlooked. For owners of mixed fleets consisting of different models and manufacturers, it is even harder to capture and merge the data into one useable format. This hinders electric fleet businesses for two reasons.

• Untapped Potential of Data: Fleet owners lose out on data-driven insights that can be used to optimize their fleets. Intelligent forecasting can improve fleet utilization, route planning, and life cycle analysis that save costs.
• Innovation is Restricted: Without access to vehicle data, fleet owners are unable to provide their clients with additional functionality and unlock revenue-generating services such as car sharing, on-demand maintenance, and smart charging.
  

What can you do about it today?

In the current scenario fleet owners are forced to find roundabout solutions to solve their data access problem.

Hardware-based solutions allow fleet owners to install a device in each of their vehicles and collect specific data. This can be expensive often involving up-front costs and recurring subscription fees. It is also redundant because hardware solutions essentially duplicate collection of the same data that OEMs already monitor.

Alternatively, fleet companies can collaborate directly with OEMs and request access to data. Recently, automakers BMW and Daimler initiated commercial developer programs that encourage collaboration by providing limited access to their data. In India, Mahindra launched the Nemo platform to enable shared, connected services. To capitalize on this opportunity fleet companies will have to dedicate resources to building relationships with multiple OEMs and maintain software teams to collect and manage the data.

How we can help

At eDRV, we understand that overcoming data silos is not straightforward or easy. We also see substantial revenue opportunities for fleet companies who want to provide value-added services to their customers. As Electric Vehicle (EV) adoption grows, and fleet owners transition their fleets, a vast range of new, connected services can be offered around them relatively seamlessly.

eDRV provides an application data service that automatically extracts, cleans and delivers EV data from multiple OEMs via the cloud, simplifying the complexity of overcoming data silos and building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching services and applications. In a world where data is key to business model innovations, eDRV helps fleet companies breakdown silos and unlock new business potential.