Humax EV Charging has joined forces with fleet charging specialist Paua in a partnership designed to make managing electric vehicle charging simpler for UK businesses, bringing home, workplace, public and depot charging together through one connected platform.
The collaboration combines Humax’s MX7 V2G-ready smart charger with Paua’s fleet charging platform, with a particular focus on removing one of the growing headaches for businesses running electric vehicles – accurately reimbursing employees who charge company vehicles at home.
Using ISO 15118 technology, the Humax MX7 can automatically identify compatible company vehicles when they are plugged into a home charger. Paua can then use the charging data to calculate the energy consumed by the vehicle and reimburse the driver accordingly.
The system removes the need for employees to submit manual charging records, mileage estimates or conventional expense claims, while helping businesses distinguish electricity used to charge a company vehicle from charging associated with a privately owned household EV.
One platform for fleet charging
As businesses continue to electrify their fleets, charging is increasingly taking place across several different environments. A company vehicle might be charged overnight at an employee’s home, during the working day at a business location, at a public charging point or at a shared fleet depot.
For fleet managers, that can mean dealing with several charging providers, reimbursement systems and reporting platforms.
Humax and Paua aim to bring those elements together, giving operators a centralised view of charging activity, expenditure and reimbursement while reducing the administrative burden involved in managing an electric fleet.
What the partnership offers
The combined Humax and Paua solution will allow fleet operators to:
- Automate home charging reimbursement using actual electricity consumption.
- Distinguish charging by company vehicles from privately owned household EVs.
- Manage charging at home, work, public charging locations and shared depots through one platform.
- Monitor charging activity and costs through centralised reporting.
- Reduce the administration associated with EV charging and driver expenses.
Intelligent vehicle identification
At the centre of the home charging proposition is the Humax MX7, a smart charger designed to support Vehicle-to-Grid technology and intelligent vehicle identification.
Rather than relying solely on the charging point to establish who should pay for a charging session, compatible vehicles can be recognised automatically when connected.
For businesses with employees who have both company and private electric vehicles at home, this could provide a particularly useful distinction, ensuring reimbursement is linked to the correct vehicle and the electricity it has actually consumed.
Humax is also planning to extend the technology beyond domestic charging.
Later this year, the company is due to expand its commercial charging range with a new 22kW AC charger aimed at workplace and depot installations.
The charger will use the same vehicle identification technology, allowing charging sessions to be linked automatically with individual vehicles across different locations.
The longer-term objective is to create a charging ecosystem in which the vehicle can be identified wherever it plugs in, giving fleet operators a clearer picture of charging behaviour and costs across their entire operation.
Home charging becomes increasingly important
Jeff Kim, president of Humax, said the shift towards electric fleets was making home charging an increasingly important part of fleet operations.
“As more businesses electrify their fleets, we’re seeing a growing shift towards drivers charging their vehicles at home. It’s more convenient for drivers, reduces downtime and makes day-to-day fleet operations more efficient,” he said.
However, Kim acknowledged that the move also introduces challenges for employers, particularly when identifying company vehicles and accurately calculating the electricity for which drivers should be reimbursed.
He said combining the MX7’s vehicle identification technology with Paua’s platform would make reimbursement “simpler, more accurate and fully automated”, while improving visibility of charging activity for fleet operators.
Connecting the charging network
Paua CEO and co-founder Niall Riddell believes fleets increasingly need to view EV charging as one connected operation rather than treating home, workplace, public and depot charging separately.
“Electric fleet charging cannot be solved one location at a time,” he said. “Drivers charge at home, at work, on the public network and increasingly at shared depots.”
Riddell said businesses need those charging environments connected rather than operating “four separate systems held together by spreadsheets”.
Integrating Humax’s vehicle identification technology should also give businesses greater confidence that charging sessions are being attributed to the correct vehicle, while Paua provides fleet managers with an overview of charging across the different locations used by their drivers.
Motoring Echo Verdict
The rapid move towards electric company vehicles is creating a new set of administrative challenges for fleet operators, and home charging reimbursement is one of the most obvious.
The Humax and Paua partnership tackles that issue by linking the vehicle, charger and fleet management platform rather than relying on drivers to record and submit their own charging costs.
More significantly, the approach recognises that fleet charging is no longer confined to one location. Bringing home, workplace, public and depot charging into a single system could make operating larger electric fleets considerably easier – particularly as intelligent vehicle identification becomes more widely supported.
