Powering Up: SIXT uses Guided Energy to boost EV availability by 30%

SIXT, a leading car rental business, has deployed thousands of electric vehicles to help their customers reduce their carbon footprint across the world.

However, electrification came with challenges. Many branches lacked a grid connection to access enough power and public chargers were either far away or expensive. Furthermore, EV and charger data sat in siloes that didn’t integrate with existing operations.

Thus, branches struggled to prioritise charging and getting the new variables of EVs wrong could lead to costly delays in turning around EVs as well as a negative customer experience.

With Guided Energy, branches can plan their charging schedules and ensure things go according to plan. When a charger fails or an EV isn’t ready in time, notifications help the team get the most out of their available charging infrastructure.

Electrification comes with new operational hurdles
Complexity in planning: Given different charging speeds, battery capacities, pickup times and available power, it became impossible to know which vehicle needed to be plugged in where and when. Getting this wrong keeps the EV in the parking lot for longer and delivers a bad customer experience. This additional complexity made EVs more difficult for operators to adopt.

Fragmented and siloed charging data: With multiple charging hardware providers and external CPOs, the cost of charging lay in siloes across different systems in very different formats, making it hard to track charging costs, understand the drivers of overspend or

Power bottlenecks: Not every branch has enough charging capacity, either leading to cars not charged in time or expensive external charging.

Turbocharging SIXT operations with an all-in-one EV and charge management platform
Automated Charge Schedules: Advanced algorithms to ensure the right EV has enough power at the right time using data from EVs, chargers and upcoming reservations, which react in real-time to dynamic changes.

Proactive monitoring: Real-time alerts ensure completed charge sessions don’t lead to costly fines (on external chargers) or bad planning / interruptions don’t end with a negative customer experience and maximise recharging capacity and therefore investment

All-in-One Platform for data across EVs, chargers and external CPOs in one place, allowing SIXT to automate reporting on charge costs across their entire footprint.

30% boost in EV utilisation with countless operational hours saved

“Guided Energy has significantly streamlined our recharging processes, saving us substantial time and effort in managing electric vehicles. The platform consolidates all our EV-related operations, including costs, supervision, and fleet management, allowing us to efficiently oversee the business unit.

Most importantly, our systems, vehicles, and chargers are seamlessly interconnected, allowing us to leverage all the technological and connectivity advantages that EVs offer over combustion vehicles. This integration simplifies EV management for operators, making it as straightforward as handling combustion vehicles.”

- Marc Aubrée, Managing Director SIXT France

After the roll-out of Guided Energy, the results were nothing short of spectacular
Increased utilisation through quicker turnaround times: Using the Guided charging schedule, the right vehicle was charge by the right time, avoiding costly delays and always delivering a great end-customer experience.

Time saved planning and monitoring: Users didn’t need to do countless checks of charging progress or times or manually try to create a new schedule whenever something changed.

Fewer charging fines: Alerts and notifications meant that EVs were unplugged when charged, opening chargers to vehicles when needed and avoiding fines for overstaying on public chargers

Automated reporting: With all transactions in one place, it’s easier than ever to reconcile costs at the end of the month, identify drivers for overspend and analyse by branch or category.