LProfessional vehicles, i.e. those purchased by companies or administrations, constitute the largest share of new car sales in France, i.e. 57% of registrations over the first three months of 2021.
The choices made by the managers of these fleets are therefore essential for major market trends. And our “Company fleets” supplement for this spring shows it: these decision-makers, long conservative in the field of vehicle engines, have now entered a new world: that of the decarbonisation of the automobile.
An overall electrification rate of around 30%
This change in the company car is first of all the almost dizzying acceleration of its electrification. According to figures from the Arval Mobility Observatory, a former company vehicle observatory, cars sold to company fleets incorporating an electric motor (from simple Toyota-style hybrids to 100% battery-powered vehicles, including rechargeable hybrids ) account for almost 20% of sales in the first quarter of 2021, while the figures peaked at 5% in 2018, just three years earlier. And again, this result is achieved by counting vans and other light commercial vehicles. If we only look at private company vehicles, that is to say classic cars, this overall electrification rate is approaching 30%, whereas it was only 7% in 2018.
Two phenomena are fueling this major trend. First, the drop in diesel, very striking and finally quite new in the fleets (except for utility vehicles), which further reduces, this time to 25%, the overall rate of dieselisation on the French market. Then, we can notice the taste of professional buyers for plug-in hybrid vehicles (or PHEV for plug-in hybrid vehicle), which posted the record increase for all types of motorization in companies between early 2020 and early 2021: + 255%.
Reluctance on 100% electric
The corporate world has become the haven of these cars capable of traveling about fifty kilometers in all-electric before switching to thermal mode and which, obviously, have replaced large diesel engines as statutory vehicles in the heart. and catalogs of executives and liberal professions. The penetration rate of plug-in hybrids in fleets is close to 12%, while it hardly exceeds 4% for individuals.
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