According to a study, companies rely much more on e-cars than private owners. While every seventh company car is now an electric car or plug-in hybrid, the private quota is significantly lower.
Every seventh car in company fleets last year was an electric car (seven percent) or a plug-in hybrid (eight percent). This is the result of the climate barometer of the state development bank KfW. For private owners, the rate was 0.9 and 1.4 percent respectively. “Companies and their vehicle fleets play a key role in the decarbonization of transport,” explained KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib.
There is a shortage of e-commercial vehicles
In Germany, around 20 percent of the climate-damaging greenhouse gases are produced in the transport sector. Motorized road traffic accounts for 98 percent of this.
In the area of company cars, the development is going in the right direction. “Battery-electric vehicles have so far only played a minor role in commercial vehicles,” said Köhler-Geib. The KfW suspects the later technical availability of e-commercial vehicles, high acquisition costs and a hardly existing high-performance charging infrastructure for heavy road transport to be the reasons.
According to the study, however, companies tend more than private individuals to own plug-in hybrids and large and more energy-intensive cars, whose climate impact is controversial. This should also be related to tax regulations for company cars, it said. The regulations favored the use of plug-in hybrids in combustion mode and the purchase of larger company cars.
KfW calls for political incentives
According to further information, more than two thirds of all new passenger car registrations are accounted for by commercial owners. According to the KfW survey, companies in the service sector are ahead by a nose, where seven or nine percent of the car fleet is operated purely electrically or as a plug-in hybrid. Company cars from construction companies and from the transport and warehousing sectors only account for five percent each for e-cars and four or seven percent for plug-in hybrids.
Transport and logistics companies in particular could make a significant contribution. Their fleet is usually larger than average and the vehicles are used more intensively, it said.
According to Köhler-Geib, costs play a major role in company decisions. “Companies consider purchasing an energy-efficient and climate-friendly vehicle if its cost-effectiveness compared to other types of drive is given in the long term,” said the economist. “With suitable measures, politicians can create appropriate incentives and make progress in the decarbonization of road traffic.”