Zenobē and the Next Phase of Electric Fleet Intelligence

Why data, not vehicles, will define the winners of zero-emission public transport

The electrification of public transport has reached a decisive phase. Early pilots are over, and the industry is now entering an era of scale, standardisation, and financial accountability. In this landscape, companies like Zenobē stand out – not simply because of the number of electric buses they deploy, but because of the business logic and digital foundations underpinning their growth.

With approximately 3,500 electric vehicles in operation today, and public ambitions to exceed 14,000 vehicles after 2030, Zenobē represents a new archetype in the mobility sector: one where data, energy, and finance converge into a single operating model.

From Fleet Ownership to Fleet Outcomes

Zenobē’s model differs fundamentally from traditional bus procurement or leasing.

Rather than selling vehicles, Zenobē delivers long-term fleet availability, typically bundling:

• Vehicle financing or ownership

• Battery systems and lifecycle management

• Charging infrastructure and depot energy optimisation

• Performance and availability guarantees

This Fleet-as-a-Service approach shifts operational and financial risk away from transport authorities and operators. At the same time, it places strong pressure on Zenobē itself: margins are determined not by upfront sales, but by how efficiently assets perform over 10–15 years.

In such a model, operational excellence is inseparable from digital intelligence.

Electric Fleets Are Data Systems on Wheels

Electric buses behave very differently from diesel fleets. Range, reliability, and cost are influenced by:

• Battery state of health and thermal behaviour

• Charging strategy and depot power constraints

• Route topology, weather, and passenger load

• Driver behaviour and operational discipline

As a result, each vehicle continuously generates data from multiple sources:

• OEM vehicle telemetry and CAN signals

• Battery Management Systems (BMS)

• Third-party telematics devices

• Chargers and depot energy systems

• Maintenance and scheduling platforms

Crucially, Zenobē operates in a multi-OEM, multi-country, multi-vendor environment. This is not a closed, vertically integrated system, but a global ecosystem of partners and technologies.

The challenge – and the opportunity – lies in making this fragmented data landscape behave like a single system.

From Telematics to a Global Fleet Intelligence Layer

Traditional telematics answers basic questions:
Where is the vehicle? Is it moving? Did a fault occur?

At Zenobē’s scale, those questions are no longer sufficient.

What matters instead is:

• How battery degradation differs across routes and climates

• Which charging strategies minimise lifetime energy cost

• How availability risks can be predicted weeks in advance

• How performance can be benchmarked across OEMs and regions

Answering these questions requires a unified telematics and analytics layer – one that normalises signals, validates data quality, and supports both real-time decisions and long-term financial models.

Recognising this, we have begun supporting Zenobē with improvement proposals for its global telematics systems, focusing on how heterogeneous vehicle and depot data can be processed, standardised, and elevated into actionable fleet intelligence.

The goal is not to replace existing systems, but to connect them into a coherent, future-proof data architecture that can scale alongside Zenobē’s fleet growth.

Scaling from 3,500 to 14,000 Vehicles will also be a Data Problem

Growing a fleet fourfold is not a linear exercise.

At 14,000+ vehicles:

• Manual oversight becomes impossible

• Small inefficiencies turn into material financial risks

• Battery replacement timing affects balance sheets

• Depot energy constraints can cap operational growth

In this context, data platforms evolve from “IT support” into the operating system of the business.

Unified fleet intelligence enables:

• Automated performance and SLA reporting

• Predictive maintenance and availability optimisation

• Battery lifecycle forecasting and second-life readiness

• Energy-aware depot and charging orchestration

Without this digital backbone, scaling would increase complexity faster than value.

Data as a Strategic and Commercial Asset

Beyond operational optimisation, Zenobē’s data ecosystem creates longer-term opportunities:

• Advanced analytics services for operators and authorities

• Data-backed battery health certification and residual value models

• Reliability and risk insights relevant to insurers and OEMs

• Foundations for future energy flexibility and grid services

In this sense, Zenobē is not only deploying assets – it is industrialising knowledge about electric fleet behaviour at scale.

A New Category of Mobility Company

Zenobē is often described as a battery or fleet-financing company. At scale, that description becomes incomplete.

What is emerging instead is:

a digital infrastructure company for zero-emission mobility,
where vehicles, batteries, chargers, and depots are orchestrated through data.

As the industry moves from experimentation to mass deployment, competitive advantage will increasingly belong to those who can measure, predict, and optimise fleet behaviour globally.

The next phase of electric mobility will not be won by hardware alone – but by the intelligence that connects it.