4 min read

Keep costs low, maximise uptime, and make your charging infrastructure work harder.

A well-designed electric vehicle charging infrastructure gives you the foundation for an efficient electric fleet. But even the best infrastructure can underperform if the charging schedule isn’t optimised.

It’s imperative to plan power requirement and the number of charge points accurately, to keep costs under control and maximise fleet uptime. It’s about finding the best balance – between ensuring vehicles are charged and ready when needed and drawing the minimum power, at the most cost-effective times.

Without proper scheduling, vehicles may not be fully charged in time, or your depot may use much more power than it needs at peak hours. Both scenarios can quickly drive up costs and reduce the return on your electrification investment.

HubCharge is our proprietary software platform dedicated to managing electric HDV fleet charging. It simplifies what can otherwise be a highly complex process, with a seamless, data-driven system to optimise your charging operations.

HubCharge uses real-time data to automate charging schedules across your fleet, accounting for a wide range of parameters, including:

• The number of vehicles in your fleet
• Their battery characteristics and charging state
• Departure and arrival times
• The available charging power
• Your energy and grid connection contracts

Using this data, HubCharge continuously calculates the most efficient charging plan. It automatically determines when each vehicle should charge, at what power level, and from which energy source. This optimises your schedule, keeping vehicles charged to target and ready to move while minimising energy costs and avoiding peak demand times.

By optimising when and how vehicles charge, HubCharge helps you derive more value and utility from your electric vehicle charging infrastructure, with the maximum operational return from every charger you install.

As your fleet grows, your charging schedules will become harder to manage. Different vehicle types, duty cycles and depots all add extra factors to coordinate – HubCharge can help.

For large fleets, HubCharge acts as a single control centre for charging activity, providing a real-time view of every vehicle’s location, battery level and charging status. You can see immediately which vehicles are on the road, which are charging, and which are ready for dispatch.

Our system automatically works out how to schedule charging throughout the night, prioritising vehicles based on business requirements such as delivery times and routes, ensuring critical vehicles are ready first.

Our roadmap for HubCharge is to support you on this electrification journey and evolve with you. If you operate several depots, soon HubCharge will be able to help. With multi-site management, you’ll be able to coordinate charging across all of them, simultaneously, at any scale. We’re also exploring how you can integrate authorised partners into your charging network, allowing for shared infrastructure and greater economies of scale. HubCharge is set to help you streamline admin and cut your operational overheads with automatic invoicing and reporting.

With your scalable charging infrastructure in place, optimising energy management is your next priority. You need a lot of electricity to power your fleet, so managing it effectively can significantly reduce your costs and carbon footprint.

HubCharge’s capabilities are set to evolve to help with this too. Soon, our software will help you manage the interaction between different energy sources. It will switch intelligently between grid power and stored or self-generated energy, to make sure that you always use the most cost-effective option available.

The roadmap for our platform also includes the ability to forecast power generation and demand to enable smarter scheduling. As an example, you will be able to plan charging sessions for periods when solar output is high, or store the energy for later sessions.

With the ability to forecast energy requirements and control consumption in real time, HubCharge will help you make the most of every kilowatt generated or purchased. You’ll be able to cut unnecessary power consumption, manage peak loads and make progress on your net-zero targets.

Any fleet manager thrives on clear, actionable information. HubCharge offers a central dashboard where you can monitor performance, track consumption, and identify opportunities for further optimisation, providing:

• Full visibility of fleet state of charge and charger usage
• Alerts and reporting to highlight issues
• Automated scheduling and load balancing
• Detailed analytics to support long-term planning and budgeting

This level of visibility helps you maintain operational control, without needing to manage every detail manually. You can focus on progressively improving operational outcomes, safe in the knowledge that your infrastructure is performing as expected.

HubCharge is much more than a scheduling tool. It is part of a complete ecosystem which is intentionally designed to underpin and enhance your broader electrification journey. It builds directly on the insight provided by our simulation tool during the planning phase, as the natural next layer once the infrastructure is deployed.

By connecting planning, deployment and operation, Mitsubishi Electric ensures consistency throughout your electric transition. You work with a single integrated solution and partner, moving you seamlessly through every stage.

We believe that a connected, data-driven approach is the key to success – and HubCharge is essential to this model. To begin or accelerate your journey, talk to one of our expert team about how our software and end-to-end electrification services can optimise your operations and realise your electrification goals.