Ford Acquires Electriphi To Help With Key Commercial Fleet EV Strategy

Commercial fleet operators are a crucial part of Ford’s customer base and its plan to get back on a firmer financial footing. Those same fleets are seen as key to the automaker’s plan to succeed in selling electric vehicles. But going electric isn’t as simple as swapping gas and diesel for a plug. It takes longer to charge EVs than to fill a fuel tank and managing how, when and where that happens is a whole new challenge for fleets. To help with that, Ford has acquired a silicon valley startup called Electriphi. 

During its recent capital markets day for investors, Ford announced the creation of Ford Pro, a new business unit focused on serving the needs of commercial customers. Ford Pro includes fleet telematics, vehicle sales, service and charging. 

Fleets typically have much higher utilization of their vehicles than average consumers and since the vehicles they use are generally a lot less fuel efficient than the vehicles most people drive, fuel costs add up much more quickly. Along with the increased maintenance costs, the overall operating costs for commercial vehicles make up a much larger portion of the total cost of ownership. 

That’s what makes fleet electrification such an appealing prospect. Compared to putting gas or diesel in a loaded full-size van or pickup truck and the elimination of much of the maintenance, operating an EV can be dramatically less expensive. 

However, for a fleet, it’s not as simple as going to the dealer and buying some EVs. A consumer might have to put in a dryer plug or wall charger in their garage. A fleet may have a few vehicles or dozens of vehicles that need to be operational to complete the work that needs to be done. 

This is where Electriphi comes in. They have developed an integrated software as a service (SaaS) platform the Ford will be incorporating into its fleet telematics system. With the standard connectivity on the vehicles, Electriphi will be able to monitor the state of charge of each vehicle in the fleet. It will also have access to all of the chargers in the depot as well as other data like vehicle routing, area maps, weather and even driver behavior. The system requires wifi connected chargers that can be managed remotely. 

“So we tie into the fleet's operation so we know when every vehicle is coming, when it actually connects into the charger, we look at the utility rates as they're changing,” said Muffi Ghadiali, founder and CEO of Electriphi. “So our algorithm incorporates all of this, it assumes that a vehicle can show up at any time, it'll leave in a certain amount of time. We dynamically calculate the charging schedule so it looks at everything that's, that's happening in the fleet in real time. And, in fact, the way the algorithm actually works is every minute it looks at all of these variables changing, and there's some really interesting things as well, right, for example, the weather.”

The Electriphi system can track how much energy is being used by the vehicles that are plugged in, what times the depot is charged for peak rates and then manage the charging to each vehicle to balance the loads to avoid demand charges and peak rates. With knowledge of the state of charge of each vehicle and the upcoming routes, individual chargers can be prioritized automatically to ensure that the fleet has the vehicles available when they need them while minimizing costs. A dashboard can tell the fleet manager which vehicles are ready to go for which trips so the work gets done. 

Another challenge for a fleet that wants to go electric is financing the initial transition. On top of the vehicles, chargers will need to be installed in the depot and electrical upgrades may be required. Ford Pro has made arrangements with Ford Credit to provide financing for the required infrastructure in addition to financing the vehicles. 

Electriphi also has a total cost of ownership modelling tool that can be utilized with fleet customers to analyze their actual vehicle usage and determine the optimal mix of electric and internal combustion vehicles and infrastructure requirements. This is all part of the larger Ford plan to have an always-on relationship with customers whether they are retail customers or fleets.