US automakers are looking to boost electric vehicle sales by broadening their horizons. Alongside individual consumers, daily rental, corporate, and government fleets also form a large customer base for carmakers.
Registration data from S&P Global Mobility underscores Tesla’s commanding presence in this field, which represented almost one-third of EV sales to fleet operators in the US from July 2022 to July 2023. Tesla’s dominance is primarily attributed to its $4.2 billion deal involving the sale of 100,000 units of the Model 3 to car rental giant Hertz.
With 28,252 units sold during the aforementioned period, the Model 3 accounted for 23 percent of all fleet EV sales, ahead of the Chevrolet Bolt, which accounted for 16 percent of the sales with 19,502 deliveries. The Model Y ranked third with over 11,000 units sold, followed by the F-150 Lightning, America’s best-selling electric truck among fleet owners.
The Bolt EV alone accounted for 39 percent of government EV registrations, equal to the combined government fleet registrations of Ford, which includes models like the F-150 Lightning, E-Transit, and the Mustang Mach-E. Although, the growth percentage of fleet EVs compared to previous years is unclear – we’ve reached out to S&P Global for additional data.
Why do fleet EVs matter? Well, EV rentals can be crucial in educating newcomers. It’s a great way to experience unique EV characteristics like instant torque and regenerative braking among others. First-timers can also explore the public charging infrastructure, and get a first-hand experience of the difference between charging speeds of Level 2 and Level 3 chargers – a short test drive at the dealership does not necessarily allow such first-hand experiences.
That said, it also gives the government and other commercial fleet operators a chance to reduce their carbon footprint.
Here are the top 10 new fleet EV registrations in the US (July 2022-July 2023):
- Tesla Model 3: 28,252
- Chevrolet Bolt: 19,502
- Tesla Model Y: 11,149
- Ford F-150 Lightning: 7,718
- Rivian EDV: 6,390
- Polestar 2: 6,128
- Ford E-Transit: 5,929
- Ford Mustang Mach-E: 3,992
- Kia Niro: 3,712
- Hyundai Kona: 2,896
As the list suggests, electric delivery vans (EDV) have a strong presence among commercial fleets. Rivian’s EDV sales are driven by Amazon, who said early this month that 10,000 Rivian Amazon EDVs were now operational across the US and Europe. Over 5,000 of those are here in the US, and Amazon plans to deploy at least 100,000 Rivian EDVs by 2030.