Fleet EV charging is mostly a timing problem. A service van back at the depot by 5pm and out again at 7am has fourteen hours to refill; a pool car booked back to back might have forty minutes. Our A-grade electricians design depot, workplace and staff-home charging for Melbourne businesses under REC 35838, sized to how your vehicles actually work. We supply the chargers or install units you already have, and take care of whatever the switchboard, supply or load management needs.
Very few fleets change over in one hit. A handful of vehicles arrive, then a few more, and the charging has to keep pace without being rebuilt each time. Planning for that from the first visit is the difference between a fleet project and a few chargers on a wall.
Fleet EV charging begins with the duty cycle
We start with the vehicles, not the chargers. For each vehicle, or each group of similar ones, we want four things: typical daily kilometres, where it sleeps, how long it stays there and who drives it.
The distributors publish useful rules of thumb. United Energy suggests trickle charging only up to 200 km a week; between 200 and 500 km it recommends a dedicated unit, good for a modern EV in eight to 12 hours, and above 500 km a higher-output point. CitiPower’s figures are 30 to 40 km per hour from a 7 kW unit and 50 to 120 km from a 22 kW unit, which needs three-phase power.
Run those numbers and the picture is usually calmer than people expect. An electric car covering 120 km a day wins it back in three to four hours on a 7 kW charger, well inside an overnight stay.
| Vehicle role | Where it sleeps | Charging that usually suits |
|---|---|---|
| Pool car for site visits | Office or depot car park | 7 kW AC, scheduled overnight |
| Trade or service van | Depot | 7 kW AC overnight, or 11 to 22 kW AC on three-phase if turnaround is tight |
| Vehicle working double shifts | Depot, briefly | DC fast charging between shifts, sized with the network |
| Take-home car | Employee’s garage or driveway | A home wall charger plus a reimbursement method |
| Staff and visitor cars | Workplace car park | Managed 7 kW AC during business hours |
Depot charging: overnight windows and staggered starts
The classic depot mistake is letting every vehicle start charging the moment it plugs in at 5.30pm, while the workshop, lights and air conditioning are still running. Scheduling fixes most of that. If each van needs about four hours at full rate and sits for twelve, a load management system can charge a third of the fleet at a time and still have every vehicle full by morning.
Timing also affects what you pay for electricity. United Energy points out that charging during the day can take advantage of flexible time-of-use tariffs and soak up renewable energy when it is most abundant and affordable. In its network area, wall and fast chargers need a registered electrical contractor (REC) to install them and must be registered on myEnergy, United Energy’s online connection service. Depots with their own rooftop array can charge from it; solar EV charger installation covers how chargers follow the panels.
Growth brings the maximum demand rules into play. Under clause 6.7 of the Victorian Service and Installation Rules, once additions take an installation’s calculated maximum demand past 100 A per phase, a limiting device has to control its supply capacity, and load management is often what keeps a growing depot on its existing supply until the fleet genuinely needs more.
Sharing one car park between fleet, staff and visitors
Many businesses want staff and visitors to charge as well, often on the same chargers. That works, provided the software can tell users apart. We set up access groups so fleet vehicles get first call on capacity, staff cards record their own sessions, and visitor bays can be opened or closed as you choose.
Layout matters more than people think. We put the bays that need the most energy closest to the switchboard, which keeps the heaviest cables short, and leave the longer runs for bays that charge less. Fleet bays also want clear signage and bollards or wheel stops that protect pedestals from vans reversing in at the end of a long shift.
Whether staff pay for workplace charging is a policy and tax decision for you and your accountant; our job is to make sure the system records what they need. If the same car park serves customers or the public, our page on commercial EV charger installation covers public access and payment.
Staff home charging and the ATO rate
Take-home vehicles charge where they sleep, usually in an employee’s garage, carport or driveway. We install chargers at staff homes the same way we would for any household (see home EV charger installation), checking the switchboard and supply first, and we can fit models that log the energy used in every session. Staff living in the inner south or near the bay are a short drive from our South Yarra and Beaumaris premises; local detail sits on the pages for EV charger installation in South Yarra or EV charger installation in Beaumaris.
Reimbursing that electricity is where tax comes in. The ATO publishes an optional EV home charging rate under Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2024/2: 5.47 cents per kilometre for the FBT year that started on 1 April 2026, up from 4.20 cents for the FBT years ending 31 March 2023 to 2026. The alternative is the actual cost of the electricity, the choice is made per vehicle for the whole year, and plug-in hybrids have been covered since the FBT year that began on 1 April 2024. Session logs from a metering charger give your adviser the data for the actual-cost method if that suits better.
Two more things to settle before the first install. Agree who owns the wall box if the employee leaves or moves, because taking a hard-wired charger off the wall is a job for an electrician. And ask your tax adviser about the charger itself, since a charger at an employee’s home can be treated differently for FBT from one on your premises.
Reports your finance team can actually use
A fleet manager needs answers, not dashboards: energy per vehicle each month, cost per cost centre, which bays sit idle and which chargers have faulted. Those reports come from the charging software, which talks to the chargers using OCPP, the open protocol published by the Open Charge Alliance. Chargers and platforms don’t all run the same OCPP version, so we confirm they match before anything is bought.
On fleet sites we usually set up:
- an RFID card or app account per driver or per vehicle, so every session is attributed
- charging profiles that give fleet vehicles priority over staff and visitor sessions
- a monthly export your finance team or fleet system can import
- fault alerts sent to whoever manages the depot
Data you can’t export is data you don’t really own, so we check the contract terms before recommending a platform.
A staged rollout as the fleet grows
The cheapest time to plan for twenty chargers is when you install the first four. Switchboard capacity, cable routes, conduit and tray can be sized for the end state while only the chargers you need go on the wall. We would rather see a depot start with six well-managed chargers and conduit for twenty than twenty chargers on a supply that can only feed eight.
Each later stage follows the data. Usage reports show when bays are genuinely full, and that is the point to add chargers or apply for more supply. Network work needs lead time. CitiPower and Powercor quote three to eight weeks for most supply alterations, so we lodge applications before new vehicles arrive, not after.
Vehicle timing matters too. On 5 May 2026 the Government announced changes to the FBT electric car discount: the full discount continues until the end of March 2027; from 1 April 2027 it is limited to EVs priced at or below a set threshold, with a 25 per cent discount for dearer EVs below the luxury car tax threshold; and from 1 April 2029 all eligible EVs move to the 25 per cent discount. Existing leases are not affected. As at October 2026 these changes are announced and in draft legislation, not law, so read the Treasury announcement and talk to your adviser before setting order dates. Either way, the chargers need to work before the cars turn up.
What to have ready before we quote
- a vehicle list with typical daily kilometres, now and planned
- where each vehicle parks overnight, and for how long
- photos of the car park and the main switchboard, or a site plan
- a recent electricity bill and, if your retailer can provide it, interval data
- the suburbs where take-home vehicles are garaged
- any fleet or finance system the charging data needs to feed
With that in hand, the first site visit can usually settle whether the depot needs load management, a supply upgrade or neither.
Frequently asked questions from fleet managers
Do we need DC fast charging at the depot?
Usually not. Vehicles that park overnight are well served by managed AC chargers. DC suits vehicles that work double shifts or return with little time to recharge, and because DC needs far more supply, we size it with the network before you commit.
Can staff charge their own EVs on the company chargers?
Yes. Separate access groups and per-driver cards keep staff sessions apart from fleet sessions, and fleet vehicles can be given priority. Whether staff pay, and how much, is your policy decision.
How do we reimburse staff who charge at home?
The ATO’s optional EV home charging rate is 5.47 cents per kilometre for the FBT year that started on 1 April 2026. The alternative is the actual electricity cost, which a metering charger can record. Your tax adviser can tell you which suits your arrangements.
Will our depot need a bigger power supply?
Not necessarily. Many depots fit their first stage inside the existing supply using load management. When the data shows the fleet has outgrown it, we apply to the distributor for the alteration and manage the work through to connection.
Can our rooftop solar charge the fleet?
Partly. Chargers can track what the panels are producing, which suits vehicles parked at the depot during the day. Vans that charge overnight still draw from the grid unless a battery stores daytime solar for them.
If you’re planning the first electric vehicles in your fleet, or you’ve outgrown a couple of wall chargers, talk to us about a fleet charging plan or ring 1300 003 853 between 7am and 7pm (closed Sundays). We belong to DUKE Electrical Group, so the depot’s wider electrical work can sit with the same team.