Analysis
16 Jan 19

LeasePlan: Electric becomes a viable option in Europe

In its “Electric Vehicle Readiness Index 2019”, released on January 16th 2019, LeasePlan analyses the preparedness for EVs of 22 European countries, based on 4 objective and quantified criteria:

  • The maturity of the EV market (also including plugin hybrids)
  • The maturity of EV infrastructure
  • Government incentives
  • LeasePlan’s experience with EVs in each country.

The report demonstrates significant progress in comparison with 2018: all countries in the index have improved their scores, but not at the same pace. This reflects the lack of action by policymakers on EV enablers (charging infrastructure, subsidies and benefits), reads the report.

LeasePlan

A strong promotor for clean vehicles, LeasePlan aims to achieve zero emission of its total fleet by 2030. The company is a founding partner of The Climate Group’s EV 100, a global business initiative aiming to fast-track EV uptake and infrastructure amongst corporate fleet owner. Through its “Zero Emission Vehicle Challenge”, The Climate Group and C40 join states, regions, cities, businesses and NGOs to send a clear signal to the automotive industry of the increasing demand for electric vehicles. LeasePlan’s role in this initiative is to develop and advocate policies and solutions that will spark mass adoption of EVs.

Fleet Managers intending to electrify their fleets hit a couple of hurdles before placing their first EV order. These can be broken down in 2 categories: the user is not comfortable with EVs or the level of local readiness (availability of EVs, infrastructure, subsidies) is insufficient.

Range Anxiety and others

Ample coverage of EVs in media has not managed to resolve the misconception that EVs are unpractical. The common understanding is still that battery-charged vehicles need to be recharged every couple of kilometres; charging is believed to take hours rather than minutes. Other electroscepticts will counter the ecological benefits of electric, pointing out that manufacturing batteries is dirty business, the supply chain of EVs is decentralized and needs too much transport or, very popular nowadays, that the production of electricity generates emissions to the extent that EVs are in reality not a valid eco alternative.

OEMs are working hard to deal with these factually debatable ideas by informing the consumer. They have also understood that, as long EVs look like their coming straight out of a Star Wars movie, they won’t appeal to the general public.

Infrastructure

The other misconception, equally subjective, is that the infrastructure is not ready for EVs. In its “EV Readiness Index” LeasePlan had a closer look at the number of charging points in each of the 22 countries analysed by the report. In absolute numbers, The Netherlands lead the ranking with almost 40,000 locations and well over 80,000 plugs, way ahead of number 2, France (16,456 charging locations) and number 3, Germany (13,043 charging locations).

The report links charging points with the number of registered EVs; unsurprisingly, The Netherlands lead the way with 4.7 stations per EV.

Market Maturity

Expressed through the EV market share (number of full EV, FCEV, PHEV and EREV against market share, B2B and B2C), the market maturity index demonstrates that only Norway has truly adopted EVs as an alternative to ICE (52.78%). Finland, The Netherlands and Sweden follow with scores around 5%; the rest of the countries perform poorly at less than 5% penetration.

Government support

Green initiatives need incentives to be successful. Most governments have put in place mechanics to promote the sales of EVs, but a look at LeasePlan’s Index learns us that there’s little harmonisation between the incentives. Also, governments seem not to acknowledge best practices from other countries. The best scores go to (alphabetically) Austria, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

LeasePlan Readiness

Finally, LeasePlan has also taken the effort to analyse its own maturity, based on charging solutions and number of EV orders. Again, the Nordics, UK and The Netherlands score significantly better than other countries.

Total Scores

Country

Total scoring

EV maturity

Charging maturity

Government

LeasePlan maturity

Norway

34

12

7

7

8

Netherlands

33

9

8

8

8

Sweden

29

9

6

7

7

Austria

28

7

6

9

6

Finland

26

7

6

6

7

Germany

25

7

5

8

5

UK

25

5

6

7

7

Portugal

24

7

5

5

7

Belgium

23

7

5

5

6

Luxemburg

23

7

6

5

5

Ireland

23

7

5

8

3

France

22

7

5

4

6

Switzerland

22

8

6

3

5

Denmark

20

6

6

1

7

Spain

20

4

4

6

6

Hungary

19

5

5

6

3

Italy

17

5

4

3

5

Romania

12

2

4

5

1

Slovakia

12

2

5

4

1

Czech

11

4

5

1

1

Greece

10

2

2

4

2

Poland

9

3

3

2

1

 

A word from the CEO

LeasePlan’s Tex Gunning: "Policymakers need to step up and take concerted action on vehicle taxation and infrastructure to make driving electric a viable option for everyone across Europe. Although our EV Readiness Index shows that electric driving is becoming a viable option in an increasing number of countries, we still have a long way to go before we get everyone driving electric. Transitioning to electric is one of the simplest things we can all do to help tackle climate change and everyone should be able to afford to go green!"

Authored by: Yves Helven