The hidden cost of the EV transition: Administrative friction
WORDS BY For many Australian businesses, the shift to electric vehicles( EVs) is no longer a question of if but when.
EV sales surged 38 % in 2025, with more than 157,000 electric vehicles sold nationally— pushing EVs to 13.1 % of all new car sales, up from 9.6 % in 2024. Battery electric vehicles alone broke the 100,000-unit barrier for the first time, and by December 2025, EVs accounted for a record 16.7 % of monthly new vehicle sales. Government incentives, sustainability goals, and generally lower running costs make the transition inevitable. Yet, behind the headlines of EV uptake and benefits lies an overlooked challenge for fleet managers: a rising hidden cost of administrative friction.
While EVs promise efficiency on the road, they can introduce inefficiency in the back office. Fleet managers are already managing multiple relationships, credit lines, and accounts across a range of fuel card providers, and now find themselves also navigating a patchwork of EV charging providers, each with its own app, pricing model, and billing cycle.
These new complexities are cutting into the very productivity gains EVs are meant to deliver. A 2024 report on fleet electrification warned that infrastructure constraints are a core barrier to further EV adoption by Australian businesses. While many businesses have on-site chargers
and allow their employees to charge at home, they still need the ability to charge on the go. In a recent survey run by WEX, over 70 % of respondents said their business vehicles are charged at public stations, citing scheduling challenges, on-site grid restraints and unplanned longer journeys as the core reasons.
Accessing the thousands of charging sites across the country requires businesses to use a combination of EV charging services just to keep vehicles powered. Add to that the need to reimburse employees who charge at home, and manage on-site chargers that often require separate providers, the result is a web of disconnected systems, manual reconciliations, and hours lost to administration.
From a business standpoint, efficiency isn ' t just measured in kilowatt-hours or litres per hundred kilometres. It ' s measured in hours saved, invoices automated, and credit lines streamlined. When accounts teams must juggle multiple supplier portals, reimbursement spreadsheets, and payment methods, the cost of EV integration extends well beyond the price of energy.
That’ s why Australian businesses are increasingly turning to unified infrastructure like the WEX Motorpass ® ecosystem. Rather than adding more tools, WEX simplifies the shift by launching the only multi-brand fuel card in Australia with integrated digital EV charging payments. Through
32 ISSUE 58 APRIL 2026 / WWW. AFMA. ORG. AU