UK Business wary of electric fleets

Businesses in the UK remain wary of investing in electric fleet cars, according to a new report by Corporate Vehicle Observatory.

The independent research, sponsored by Arval, a fleet operator, claims that compared to fleets in 13 other countries, UK company fleets are likely to show the slowest uptake of electric vehicles over the next three years.

The poll compared feedback from UK company fleet decision makers with those from their peers in 13 other countries. A total of 3,500 fleet decision makers were surveyed from Belgium, Brazil, The Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.

Less than 30% of larger businesses in the UK questioned in the poll were planning to introduce electric vehicles compared to 61% opting for hybrids. For small to medium sized companies, the figures were lower with only 12% considering electric vehicles compared to 26% planning to introduce hybrids.

Reasons cited by companies for the lack of electric car take up included worries over the limited number of recharge points, concerns that the cars would be too difficult to run over longer distances and would be too costly to buy in the first place and doubts over the vehicles' overall green credentials over time.