BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Due to difficult market conditions for electric cars (BEV), some car rental and car sharing providers are also reducing the proportion of electric vehicles in their fleets. At Berlin car-sharing provider Miles, for example, only just under 17 percent of all rental cars had an electric drive at the end of last year, as the company announced on request. Just six months earlier, the proportion was 25 percent. New electric cars are currently only being integrated into the fleet to a limited extent, it said.

"A direct comparison between combustion vehicles and e-cars in car sharing shows that an e-car still has a cost disadvantage compared to combustion vehicles," Miles explains. "This is due to the higher acquisition costs, the more complex and expensive repairs and the higher operating costs."

Due to their shorter range, electric cars have to be recharged more frequently than combustion-powered cars. Customers are also more likely to rent a car with a conventional drive when the battery is low, especially if longer trips or excursions are planned. "E-cars will remain an integral part of our fleet, but the switch will not happen quite as quickly as originally planned," Miles continued.

The car rental and car sharing provider Sixt from Munich made a similar statement. The company also does not want to completely ban electric cars from its fleet, it announced a few weeks ago when presenting its annual results for 2023. "However, the concrete form of further development requires a high degree of flexibility." According to the report, market conditions for the sale of used e-vehicles have deteriorated significantly. "In Germany, for example, prices for such vehicles have fallen by more than 20 percent over the past year."

According to Sixt, it has therefore started to remove e-cars from its fleet for which there are no buyback or leasing agreements. At the end of February 2024, the proportion of such vehicles in the electric Sixt fleet was only around half of what it was on March 31, 2023, it said.

At car rental company Europcar, the proportion of e-cars in the entire fleet is around twelve percent internationally, according to the company, and higher in Germany. "This is in line with our targets and we currently see no reason to reduce them," a spokesperson said.

Recently, rental companies and car sharers have also hardly bought any new electric vehicles. In the first two months of the year, the Federal Motor Transport Authority counted only 663 new registrations for this group of owners - this corresponds to 1.7 percent of their purchases. On average for 2023, BEVs still accounted for 12.4 percent of new registrations among renters and car sharers. In total, there were 37,052 units. Even in January and February 2023, when demand for BEVs had temporarily slumped due to a reduced premium, electric vehicles were still significantly more popular with these providers, with just under 1,800 new registrations or 4.4%.

The purchase premium for commercially used e-cars expired completely in September. As a result, demand collapsed significantly. In December, the government then surprisingly also scrapped the purchase premium for private customers. Since then, the electric drive, which had enjoyed high growth rates for years, has lost considerable momentum. According to the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), the number of newly registered electric cars fell by 14% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year.

Miles believes that one key to boosting demand again, at least in the commercial sector, lies with local authorities. One helpful approach would be to exempt e-vehicles from parking fees in cities. "Looking to the future, however, it is just as important that vehicle ranges continue to increase and that the charging infrastructure in cities grows," the company emphasized./maa/DP/stk