Teslas and Chevrolet are among the most popular electric vehicles for fleet use
The Ford F-150 Lightning is the most popular electric truck for fleet operators.
October 30, 2023 in 1:58 PM ET
US automakers are looking to boost electric vehicle sales by broadening their horizons. Besides individual consumers, daily rentals, corporate fleets and governments also constitute a large customer base for automakers.
Registration data from S&P Global Mobility underscores Tesla’s strong presence in the space, which accounted for nearly a third of electric vehicle sales to fleet operators in the U.S. from July 2022 to July 2023. Tesla’s dominance is primarily due to its $4.2 billion deal, which includes 100,000 Model 3 units sold to car rental giant Hertz.
Although Hertz is now scaling back its electric vehicle ambitions due to higher repair costs and lower resale value due to Tesla’s price cuts, Bloomberg I mentioned recently.
With 28,252 units sold during the aforementioned period, the Model 3 accounted for 23% of the total electric vehicle fleet sales, ahead of the Chevrolet Bolt, which accounted for 16% of sales with 19,502 deliveries. The Model Y ranked third with more than 11,000 units sold, followed by the F-150 Lightning, America’s best-selling electric truck among fleet owners.
The Bolt EV alone represents 39 percent of government EV registrations, equivalent to registrations for Ford’s combined government fleet, which includes models like the F-150 Lightning, E-Transit, and Mustang Mach-E. Although the percentage growth of the electric vehicle fleet compared to previous years is unclear, we reached out to S&P Global for additional data.
Why is the electric vehicle fleet important? Well, renting electric vehicles can be crucial in educating newcomers. It’s a great way to experience unique EV characteristics like instant torque, regenerative braking and more. Beginners can also explore the general charging infrastructure, and get a first-hand experience of the difference between the charging speeds of Level 2 and Level 3 chargers – a short test drive at the dealership doesn’t necessarily allow for such first-hand experiences.
However, it also gives the government and other commercial fleet operators an opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint.
Here are the top 10 new fleet registrations for electric vehicles 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 EVD: 6,390
- Pole Star 2: 6,128
- Ford E-Transit: 5,929
- Ford Mustang Mach E: 3,992
- To Nero: 3712
- Hyundai Kona: 2,896
As the list indicates, electric delivery vans (EDV) have a strong presence among commercial fleets. Rivian’s EDV sales are being driven by Amazon, which said early this month that 10,000 Rivian Amazon EDVs are now in operation across the US and Europe. There are more than 5,000 of them here in the United States, and Amazon plans to deploy at least 100,000 Rivian EDVs by 2030.
