Only 1.8% of UK’s SME fleets operate hybrid vehicles

A new survey has revealed a surprisingly low penetration of electric and hybrid cars within UK-based SME fleets.

Research released by MIB Data Solutions, which produces the Fleet Data and Fleet Entire industry databases, reveals that only seven out of 1,000 fleets (0.7%) operate any electric vehicles, and only 18 fleets (1.8%) operate any hybrid vehicles. The 1,000 survey respondents were from companies with fleets ranging from one to one hundred vehicles.

According to Nick Boddington, managing director of MIB Data Solutions, the survey results indicate exactly how far motor manufacturers and legislators have 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," said Boddington.

Whilst he conceded that it is only in the last few months that viable hybrid choices have been available, the technology itself has been on sale for more than a decade, which makes it even more disappointing that fewer than one in fifty fleets surveyed had any hybrids at all.
Boddington believes that motor manufacturer sales and marketing efforts alongside expensive government incentives will be needed to encourage small-medium fleets to look carefully at electric and hybrid vehicles in the next couple of years.

"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. However, Boddington said that, 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," said Boddington.

Quelle: eyefortransport
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