A new partnership between Voltempo and Corpay has gone live with its first shared depot charging site, designed to help businesses move fleets to electric vehicles faster and at lower cost.<\/p>\n
The first live rollout sees Welch Group provide charging access at its depot for Openreach vehicles, creating a model where unused depot charging capacity can be booked by other fleets.<\/p>\n
The scheme combines charging infrastructure, energy supply and payment systems into one service, aiming to remove some of the biggest barriers businesses face when switching to EVs.<\/p>\n
Welch Group, a freight and logistics operator, will continue to run its own depot while also allowing third-party fleets to use spare charging capacity. The model is intended to help site owners improve charger use and create an extra income stream.<\/p>\n
Openreach, which operates one of the UK\u2019s largest commercial fleets, now has nearly 7,000 electric vehicles on the road. The business will use the new depot charging option to support engineers who are unable to charge vehicles at home.<\/p>\n
Drivers will be able to pay using existing EV charge cards through Corpay\u2019s payment platform, keeping billing within one system.<\/p>\n
The partners also plan to source energy for Welch Group through a bulk-buying model aimed at improving price certainty and lowering running costs. Renewable energy options and on-site solar generation will also support sustainability targets.<\/p>\n
Judy O’Keefe, director of Fleet at Openreach said: \u201cPartnerships like this are essential as we build the UK\u2019s Full Fibre network, and scale up our electric fleet to support that work. Moving a fleet of our size to electric is a big job, and it only works if charging is simple, safe and reliable for our engineers \u2013 the people out on the road every day building and maintaining that network.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve already installed more than 4,000 EV chargers at engineers\u2019 homes and across our operational sites, but we know home charging isn\u2019t an option for everyone. That\u2019s why working closely with trusted charging and technology partners matters. It helps us give our engineers reliable access to charging at home, on the road and at our sites, so they can keep doing their job safely and deliver the service our customers rely on.”<\/p>\n
Simon Smith, CEO of Voltempo said: \u201cThis is a pivotal moment for the industry. We\u2019ve moved from talking about the challenges of electrification to actively solving them at scale. By integrating infrastructure, energy and payments into a single solution, we are removing the biggest barriers to adoption; cost, complexity and access. What\u2019s critical is that this model works for everyone, from innovative SME operators like Welch Group to major fleets like Openreach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The new system allows fleets to share charging sites, cutting costs and supporting faster EV rollout across logistics operations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":266702,"featured_media":2110916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50204],"coauthors":[127717],"class_list":["post-2110915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-featured-story","tag-greater-birmingham"],"yoast_head":"\n