It is not a range question. It is a range and a dwell question.
A vehicle converts only if its hardest day of the year fits inside the range you can actually dispatch, and the depot has it plugged in long enough that night to put the energy back. Miss either and the vehicle is not replaceable, however good the brochure looks.
- 413 km
- brochure range
- 279 km
- dispatchable — 32% less
- 80/120
- convertible on 11 kW
- 39
- too long at any charger speed
Every vehicle, on its worst day
The dashed wall is range and does not move. The sloped line is charging, and choosing a charger pivots it.
Depot charger
Choosing one pivots the sloped line. It never moves the wall.
Convertible
Needs a faster charger
Route too long
One dot per vehicle, placed by its hardest day and its tightest night. Hover for the numbers behind it.
Each vehicle sits at its longest day out of 260 and its shortest overnight dwell — the two worst numbers it produced all year, not its averages. A fleet sized on averages electrifies on paper and strands vehicles in August.
413 km on the spec sheet, 279 km you can promise a customer
A 110 kWh pack does not deliver its brochure range in a Riyadh summer with a load in the back. Every step below is a multiplication most feasibility studies skip, and together they remove 32 per cent.
None of these are pessimistic. They are the difference between a number measured on a test cycle and a number a dispatcher can commit to on the hottest week of the year, which is the only number worth planning against.
- 413 km
Brochure range
Pack size over spec-sheet consumption.
- 355 km
Heat and air conditioning
×0.86Cabin cooling and pack thermal management through a Riyadh summer.
- 326 km
Payload
×0.92A van that is actually carrying something.
- 310 km
Real driving
×0.95Speed, wind and the difference between a test cycle and a driver on a deadline.
- 279 km
Reserve you will not use
×0.9Nobody dispatches to an empty battery. This is the buffer a driver keeps.
That works out at 0.32 kWh per kilometre in service, which is also the number that decides how long the vehicle has to stay plugged in.
Past 11 kW, faster charging buys you nothing
Going from 7.4 kW to 11 kW converts 17 more vehicles. Going all the way to 50 kW DC converts only 1 more — because past that point the wall is range, and no charger moves a wall.
This is worth checking before anyone quotes you for rapid units. The expensive half of a depot electrification is usually the supply upgrade behind the sockets, and on this duty cycle most of it would be spent buying capacity that no vehicle here can use.
| Charger | Hours for a full day | Convertible | Gained | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.4 kW | 12.0 h | 63 | — | A single-phase socket per bay. Cheapest to install, and the slowest. |
| 11 kW | 8.1 h | 80 | +17 | Three-phase AC. Usually the most that existing depot wiring will carry. |
| 22 kW | 4.0 h | 81 | +1 | Three-phase at full current. Needs the supply upgrading, not just the sockets. |
| 50 kW DC | 1.8 h | 81 | none | A rapid unit. Expensive per bay, and it draws enough to need its own connection. |
Hours are for replacing a full 279 km day at 0.32 kWh per kilometre. A vehicle needs that many hours of dwell on its tightest night, not its average one.
The ones that fail on a handful of days
24 vehicles miss the range wall without missing it by much. 6 of them exceed it on twelve days a year or fewer. That is not a vehicle problem — it is a scheduling problem wearing one.
If those specific days can be swapped onto something diesel, the vehicle converts and the rest of the year is electric. Deciding that needs the days named, which is the part a feasibility spreadsheet built on averages can never give you.
| Vehicle | Typical day | Longest day | Over by | Days over a year | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VEH-140 | 123 | 280 | +1 | 1 | Swap those days, convert the vehicle |
| VEH-175 | 123 | 282 | +3 | 1 | Swap those days, convert the vehicle |
| VEH-166 | 123 | 281 | +2 | 3 | Swap those days, convert the vehicle |
| VEH-106 | 128 | 290 | +11 | 6 | Swap those days, convert the vehicle |
| VEH-118 | 130 | 299 | +20 | 12 | Swap those days, convert the vehicle |
| VEH-211 | 130 | 297 | +18 | 12 | Swap those days, convert the vehicle |
VEH-140 runs 123 km on a typical day and exceeds the usable range on a single day of the year. Buying a longer-range vehicle to cover that day is the expensive answer to the wrong question.
What this does not settle
This answers whether your routes fit. It does not answer whether you should electrify, and it is not the harder half of that decision.
- We can tell you which routes fit, not whether the vehicle exists
- Model availability, lead times and homologation are a procurement problem and they move faster than we can publish. Treat the shortlist here as the demand side only.
- The depot connection is the real lead time
- Sockets are quick. The supply upgrade behind them is measured in months and sometimes in a substation. Start that conversation before you order vehicles, not after.
- The charge curve is not a straight line
- The DC figures here assume an average rate, which a real session will not hold to the top of the pack. Treat 50 kW as optimistic above roughly 80 per cent.
- Eight years from now the battery is smaller
- Plan the range headroom for the end of the vehicle's life, not the start. A route that fits with nothing to spare on day one does not fit in year seven.
The useful contribution is narrow and it is real: 81 of 120 vehicles have a duty cycle that fits and 39 do not — but 6 of those 39 miss only on days you can name and reschedule. Start with that list rather than with a target.
The other outcomes
Cut fuel and running cost
Idling, routing, fuel loss and overtime.
Reduce accidents
Coach the behaviour before it becomes a claim.
Raise utilisation
Find the assets earning nothing.
Stay compliant
Wasl registration and TGA reporting.
Stop theft and misuse
Geofences, after-hours movement, fuel siphoning.