How Is EV Fleet Charging Designed for Municipal Vehicle Fleets?

The load study is the foundation: for each vehicle class, the engineer documents daily mileage, route energy intensity, dwell start and end times, and battery capacity. A sanitation truck that dwells eight hours overnight needs a very different charging solution than a pool car that dwells two hours at lunch. Telematics data from the existing fleet, where available, replaces guesswork with measured duty cycles. From the duty cycles comes the charging plan: power level per vehicle, number of ports, and the managed-charging strategy that staggers sessions across the dwell window. The engineer models the depot's diversified peak — not every vehicle charges at full power simultaneously — and produces the phased load profile the utility needs for the service upgrade. This analysis also right-sizes the chargers themselves; oversized DC fast chargers where overnight Level 2 suffices is one of the most common wastes in fleet electrification.

The electrical design builds for the end state. The engineer sizes the service, switchgear, and distribution for the fully electrified fleet, installs conduit and pull boxes for every future charger during initial trenching, and brings in only the chargers the first phase funds. This build-once-trench-once approach is the single biggest cost saver in depot electrification. Utility coordination starts on day one: service upgrade applications, transformer lead times, rate schedule selection (demand charges can dominate the operating cost), and any make-ready programs the utility offers. The engineer designs the metering and the managed-charging controls together so the depot can participate in demand response or time-of-use optimization. Each phase of the plan pairs vehicles with chargers and capacity, so the council never approves electric trucks with nowhere to charge them.

A complete fleet charging design keeps every route electrified on schedule: • Fleet load study with duty cycles, dwell windows, and route energy per vehicle class • Charging power levels matched to dwell — overnight depot charging before fast charging • Electrical service and distribution sized for the ultimate electrified fleet • Conduit and trenching for all future chargers installed in the first phase • Early utility coordination on service upgrades, transformers, and rate schedules • Managed charging software to stagger sessions and control demand charges • Phased plan pairing each vehicle procurement with its charging capacity