fleetster expands electric Casharing to Chile
Around the world: fleetster’s corporate carsharing software is now also used in Latin America! Since the end of 2016, the Chilean company Engie Factory manages its permanently changing eVehicle-fleet with the Munich carsharing software.
Corporate Carsharing with electric vehicles
There are several reasons for a company to turn a ‘normal’ carpool into an innovative corporate carsharing. Here are just some examples:
- Optimize the vehicle’s usage
- Set up a sustainable image for your company
- Reduce vehicle costs by allowing private trips
- Integrate Leasing returns easily in the carpool
- Decrease administration effort
Engie Factory is a Chilean Startup-Accelerator that focusses on start-ups with sustainable business models and wants to set a good example. For testing purposes the company always has a few electric cars in its carpool. Therefore, Engie Factory was looking for an easy-to-use possibility to give its employees access to those electric test cars. A feature for eCars was especially important to them. In an optimal case, the vehicles are managed so that no employee needs to fear an empty battery.
Global Plug and Play
“We were curious ourselves if things will work out, as this is the most complex case we could think of: sending a key box across the globe, implement a new language, organize customer-support in another time zone combined with electric vehicles”, fleetster CEO Tim Ruhoff explains.
fleetster’s Software is in the Cloud, so it does not require a local installation. The translation into Spanish was done by Engie Factory directly without any difficulties. After translating everything, the language simply needed to be activated - so fleetster is available in Spanish now! The key box was sent to Chile via mail, it got unpacked and plugged in (LAN and power). The first time the automatic key box was online then, it downloaded the latest update and was instantly ready for action.
Most of the time, the Latin American startup accelerator has between 2 and 15 electric test cars in its garage. The employees are allowed to use the test vehicles for private and business trips. “Due to the fact that the cars in our pool change all the time, a flexible system is absolutely necessary. The management of the electric vehicles and especially their keys need to be easy for us”, said Pablo Casorzo, fleet manager at Engie Factory.
Test vehicle management with an electronic key box
Engie Factory decided to order an automatic key box to manage the vehicle’s keys. There are several advantages compared to a key manager (reception, fleet manager, facility manager, or similar):
- All of the keys are stored safely in the key box
- Keys are available to the employees 24/7 (with a valid booking)
- Checking driving licenses, managing damages, driver logs etc. can also be done directly at the box
If the test vehicles in the pool change, the keys can easily be switched. This is how Engie Factory is able to keep track and manage all keys and cars.
“Of course, fleetster’s Carsharing-Kits would have been more innovative to manage the keys”, Rivas told. Those boxes get installed into the car and allow the user to access the car via a smartphone app. For the test vehicles, installing and removing the carsharing-kits over and over again is too much effort. “For this exact reason, fleetster offers different possibilities to manage vehicle keys. The customers are able to decide themselves which option fits their needs best”, fleetster CEO Tim Ruhoff explains.
Why going to Chile?
Complex cases like a key box for electric vehicles in Chile are important test cases for the fleetster team. It helps to find out how scalable, international and stable the processes and the product itself are.
Especially for fleetster’s white label customers (car manufacturers, leasing companies, carsharing providers) and partners, those tests are very important. These companies offer fleetster to their international clients in their own design. To avoid troubles in these scaled cases, fleetster continuously tests the complex cases with its own customers.
This topic becomes more and more critical for fleetster since the first vehicles are about to drive in the US. In this case, not managed by a keybox, but with Carsharing-kits (Telematic devices) installed in the cars.
