Fleet firms slow to take on electric and hybrid vehicles, survey shows
The uptake of electric cars within fleets has been extremely low with just seven out of 1,000 small to medium UK fleets operating the green vehicles, a new survey has revealed.
And only 18 fleets (1.8%) out of those surveyed, ranging from companies with just one vehicle to those with as many as 100, were operating any hybrid vehicles.
The research was compiled by MIB Data Solutions, which produces the Fleet Data and Fleet Entire industry databases.
Nick Boddington, managing director at MIB Data Solutions, said the results showed exactly how far motor manufacturers and legislators had to go in terms of convincing the majority of UK businesses to move away from conventional petrol and diesel vehicles.
“If you look at the amount of coverage given in the media to the subject of electric and hybrid vehicles, you could be forgiven for thinking that they were becoming relatively commonplace. However, these findings show that as far as UK SME businesses are concerned, they are still very much marginal choices," he said.
“To a large extent, it is understandable that electric vehicles are so rare – it is only in the last few months that viable choices have been available – but it is surprising to see that fewer than one in 50 fleets surveyed had any hybrids. When you consider that the technology has been on sale for more than a decade and the high level of competence of the latest models, that low level of penetration seems disappointing.
“Clearly, considerable motor manufacturer sales and marketing effort alongside expensive government incentives will go into attempting to encourage small-medium fleets to look carefully at electric and hybrid vehicles in the next couple of years as models like the Nissan Leaf and Vauxhall Ampera make their way to market but our research indicates that there is a very steep hill to climb.
“It perhaps also suggests that, if there is to be a significant fleet penetration of electric and hybrid vehicles in the medium term, it will have to come from major corporates who are willing to make policy decisions that encourage take up.”
MIB’s research also showed that just 86 of the fleet managers surveyed (8.6%) said that they were interested in reducing fleet emissions.
Boddington added: “To some extent, the views of fleet managers are irrelevant because most of the impetus for CO2 reductions in recent years has come from drivers through the company car benefit in kind taxation scheme, and this momentum is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. However, the research does indicate that asking UK small-medium companies corporately to adopt electric and hybrid vehicles on environmental grounds is likely to have an extremely limited impact.”
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