Lightning eMotors’ Telematics Solution, Optimizes Fleet Planning and Deployment with Massive Database

The integrated software provides fleet operators with real-time data for in-use vehicles and actionable Lightning Energy charging statistics

Lightning eMotors provider of medium-duty and specialty commercial electric vehicles and charging solutions for fleets, announced today that it has passed the 10 terabyte (TB) database milestone for its state-of-the-art Lightning Insights™ telematics system utilizing Tessell DBaaS (database-as-a-service) running on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Lightning Insights, purpose-built for monitoring and managing commercial electric vehicle fleets in real time, tracks up to 156 data points every second. Over eight years, 600+ deployed vehicles and more than 5 million miles, Lightning Insights has amassed more than 10TB of data, providing operators unprecedented access to real-time information about vehicle location, driver habits, state of charge, energy usage, efficiency and much more.

“Having this quantity of data on how commercial electric vehicles operate in the real world provides us with a great opportunity to not only help customers make better decisions for their fleets, but educate the market as well,” said Lightning eMotors’ vice president of marketing and sales operations Nick Bettis. “Providing honest information that counters some of the unrealistic claims in the market today is something we are passionate about.”

In addition to providing access to critical operational data, Lightning’s customer support team also uses Insights data for real-time alerts on vehicle health exceptions, allowing operators and service technicians to plan for and complete any necessary repairs before they become critical.

Lightning transferred its internal MySQL database at the heart of its Lightning Insights system to Tessell’s DBaaS running on AWS in September 2022. In less than one year, thanks to accelerating vehicle deployments, the database has reached more than 10TB and is growing at the rate of about one-half TB per month.

“When we evaluated the Tessell solution, we were extremely impressed with the resiliency and scalability it offered,” said Tim Reeser, co-founder and CEO of Lightning eMotors. “Along with Tessell’s vision, which aligns with our own commitment to relentless innovation, the robust solution has allowed us to scale and support our telematics capabilities quickly and affordably to meet the information needs of our growing customer base.”

“We’re very excited to reach this milestone with Lightning eMotors,” said Bala Kuchibhotla, co-founder and CEO of Tessell, Inc. “We strive to be not just a provider, but a partner to our customers, and we love seeing the continued expansion of the Lightning Insights environment.”

Commercial and government fleet operators considering electrification are encouraged to utilize Lightning’s Fleet Planner, powered by Lightning Insights, to see how a Lightning EV compares to an equivalent ICE vehicle in efficiency and total cost of ownership. Additionally, using data collected over more than 5 million real-world miles, Lightning’s Fleet Planner can also provide insight into how much CO₂ could be mitigated from the atmosphere with an electrified fleet for their specific use cases.

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