Fleet managers on 2020: breakthrough for electrification and more MaaS, please

2020 will be the breakthrough year for electric cars. More models are becoming available and their TCO is getting closer to that of petrol and diesel cars. They also have something on their wish list, as they would like to see larger, all-encompassing MaaS providers enter the market.

Fleet Europe spoke with five leading European fleet managers and asked them the following two questions:

• What will be the trend that will impact fleet and mobility management in Europe in 2020? 
• What do you hope to see developing or happening in our fleet and mobility industry for the benefit of today’s fleet manager?

Jorge Fernandez, 2019 Global Fleet Manager of the Year and Global Category Manager Fleet at Roche

What will be the trend that will impact fleet and mobility management in Europe in 2020?
"I think 2020 will be a transition year to evaluate the mid term future of electrification. Car manufacturers will launch many PHEV and BEV models in order to meet their CO2 targets. It may also be a crucial year for governments to define their positioning for the next years."

What do you hope to see developing or happening in our fleet and mobility industry for the benefit of today’s fleet manager?
"Many mobility services are managed locally, at the country or even the city level. It would be good to develop platforms to simplify and aggregate services in order to help fleet managers define and apply the right combination of mobility services without having to manage several suppliers."

Jarno Pajunen, 2019 European Fleet & Mobility Manager of the Year and 2019 European Smart Mobility Manager of the Year, Global Category Manager at Nokia

What will be the trend that will impact fleet and mobility management in Europe in 2020? 
"One trend that will be very visible in the coming months is the electrification of fleets. This will impact on fleet management as companies need to find ways to treat them under car policies, how to deal with charging infrastructure and payment platforms and how to control TCO, especially regarding fuel and charging costs."

What do you hope to see developing or happening in our fleet and mobility industry for the benefit of today’s fleet manager?
"Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is still a very young industry but it is fragmented, very local and it has multiple service providers. We need solutions to control the mobility topic together with traditional fleet, not as separate topics."

Fer Derwort, European Fleet Manager, Infor

What will be the trend that will impact fleet and mobility management in Europe in 2020?
"WLTP will have a major impact in fleet in combination with the availability of ICE cars and the run on battery-electric vehicles. You need to be prepared for a serious cost increase overall in this transition. Early adopters of EVs, MaaS and limited car choices will have an advantage over their competitors."

What do you hope to see developing or happening in our fleet and mobility industry for the benefit of today’s fleet manager?
"The economic life cycle of environmentally friendly vehicles will be increased beyond the 60 months to compensate that benefit cars are getting more expensive. The earning models of the traditional leasing vendors are under pressure and fleet management will move in the direction of offering a more sustainable way of travelling."

Huub Smeets, Global Procurement Manager for Fleet and Travel, PMI

What will be the trend that will impact fleet and mobility management in Europe in 2020?
"With the recent election win of Boris Johnson Brexit could come quickly now. What will be the full impact on UK and mainland Europe? With regard to greener fleets we see multiple OEMs launching volume models. It will be the beginning of a totally new fleet landscape in which the green TCO will become increasingly interesting."

What do you hope to see developing or happening in our fleet and mobility industry for the benefit of today’s fleet manager?
"At the end of a tender process, leasing companies want you to sign a global master agreement and country-specific agreements. The country-specific ones can be cumbersome, frustrating and time consuming. I feel the industry should work towards a solution whereas the master agreement serves both purposes or that we develop a kind of standard local agreement in which we only have to apply a different law."

Alexandra Melville, 2017 International Fleet Mobility Award winner and Global Car Fleet & Mobility Category Lead, Accenture

What will be the trend that will impact fleet and mobility management in Europe in 2020?
I think that 2020 will be the year when the fleet managers will accelerate the change in power train thanks to the manufacturers bringing their EV, PHEV models in an accelerated way. With the pressure on CO₂, I think there will be a focus set more and more on alternative mobilities in order to give employees more flexibility to go to point A to point B. Not only on mobility providers, but also on mobility devices.

What do you hope to see developing or happening in our fleet and mobility industry for the benefit of today’s fleet manager?
I hope that 2020 will bring more mobility options and opportunities from suppliers but also from the cities which will enable us to propose a better service to our users.

Leading photograph: Volkswagen ID.3, one of the new electric vehicles becoming available in 2020