Fleet depot charging
Depot Level 2 typically runs $3,500 to $9,000 per port and DC fast runs $55,000 and up, but on a fleet site the controlling number is your service capacity, not the port price. Load management across a dwell window is almost always cheaper than upsizing the service, and phasing the build around the utility's energisation timeline is what keeps vehicles moving.
Dwell time is the design input everyone skips
A van that sits on the yard for ten hours does not need a fast charger; it needs a share of a managed circuit. Size the system against the energy each vehicle must take on overnight and the hours available to deliver it, and the required power drops dramatically. Sizing against peak charger nameplate instead is how depots end up paying for a service upgrade they never needed.
Load management versus a service upgrade
Load management shares a fixed amount of power intelligently across many ports. A service upgrade buys more power. The first is a controller and software; the second is a transformer, a utility work order and a queue. For most overnight depots the first wins on cost and on schedule, and it wins on schedule by more than it wins on cost.
Phase the build, and trench once
Install conduit and pads for the full eventual port count in the first trench, then populate ports as vehicles arrive. The civil work is the part you cannot cheaply redo, and coming back to cut the same yard a second time costs more than the ports you deferred.
Demand charges can exceed the energy bill
Commercial tariffs bill on peak demand as well as consumption, and an unmanaged depot can set a monthly peak in the first fifteen minutes after the shift ends. Whether a managed charging profile or a time-of-use rate is the right answer depends on the tariff, and the tariff is a utility-specific fact — which is exactly the kind of thing this site tracks.
There is no federal tax credit for an EV charger installed today — for a home or for a business. Public Law 119-21 moved the termination of the Section 30C Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit to June 30, 2026, and both halves of it ended on that date: the 30% residential credit capped at $1,000 per port, and the business credit of 6% (30% with prevailing wage and apprenticeship) capped at $100,000 per item. The separate Section 30D and 25E clean-vehicle credits ended for deliveries after September 30, 2025.
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Where will the charger go?
Location decides the length of the wiring run and whether anyone has to dig.
Do fleet depots need DC fast charging?
Usually not for overnight duty cycles. DC fast earns its cost where vehicles turn around mid-shift or where dwell time is under two hours. A mixed depot with mostly Level 2 and a small number of fast chargers for exception cases is the common efficient answer.
What utility programs apply to a fleet depot?
Commercial make-ready is the main one, and it is sponsored by the utility rather than by the state or the federal government. Amounts, eligible equipment and whether customer-side work qualifies all vary by utility, which is why we track it per utility rather than publishing a national figure.
See your range, and what is actually left of the incentives
Eight questions. A line-item range. Every rebate we can verify for your ZIP, with the date we checked it.