US automakers are looking to boost electric vehicle sales by broadening their horizons, and alongside individual consumers, daily rental, corporate, and government fleets have emerged as major secondary customers for most carmakers.
S&P Global Mobility's data 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. Hertz is now scaling back on its EV ambitions due to the high cost of repair and low resale value due to Tesla's price cuts.
With 28,252 units sold between July 2022 and July 2023, 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.
Update: Calendar year registration data shared by S&P Global Mobility with InsideEVs revealed just how stark the growth curve has been over the past three years. Model 3 fleet registrations increased by over 400 percent, growing from 6,263 units in calendar year 2021 to 32,674 units in 2022. Model Y fleet registrations increased by 140 percent, growing from 4,360 units to 10,459 units during the same period. The Bolt has been the most popular fleet EV in the first seven months of 2023, with over 17,000 registrations between January and August, beating even the Model 3, and growing by 220 percent compared to calendar year 2022.
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.
