Short-term car rentals to electrify fleets

Interview with Guirec Grand-Clément, President of the Shared Mobility Branch of MOBILIANS

Short-term car rental companies focus on fleets to boost electric vehicle rentals

A government decree from March 2025 on greening corporate fleets provides short-term car rental companies with the opportunity to increase the rental of electric vehicles to businesses and stimulate demand.

This is a real boon for short-term car rentals, which have been struggling with low demand for electric vehicles.

A government measure from March 1st allows companies with fleets of more than 100 vehicles to include short-term rentals of electric cars in their fleet greening trajectory, as required by the French Mobility Orientation Law (LOM).

In practice, electric vehicles—and even plug-in hybrids—are counted from one day of rental as clean vehicles, proportional to their rental duration. This can help companies avoid the annual incentive tax on fleet greening, which imposes heavy penalties: €2,000 per missing low-emission vehicle in 2025, €4,000 in 2026, and €5,000 in 2027.

Over 3,500 companies could boost demand for electric vehicles in short-term car rentals

The potential is significant for short-term car rental companies, as more than 3,500 corporate fleets are affected by the greening trajectory imposed by the LOM.

«  This measure greatly helps short-term car rental companies , which face low demand, to rent out more electric vehicles and, above all, to introduce and convert employees to electric vehicles for professional trips lasting a few days. This is the real challenge for short-term car rental »  explains Guirec Grand-Clément.

Short-term car rental also allows companies to rent the right electric vehicle for the right use, typically for two days to cover daily trips of 60 to 70 km.

«  Companies, which make up a large part of the short-term rental customer base, are thus contributing to the increase in demand for electric vehicles since early 2025, even if this change is happening at a still relatively slow pace » notes Guirec Grand-Clément.

This has led to a significant increase in the share of electric cars in short-term rental fleets, rising to 8.2% in 2025 compared to 2.4% in 2024.

To encourage companies to rent electric cars, short-term car rental companies generally target the travel managers, often under the responsibility of general services management, as well as fleet managers directly.

«  The strategy is to involve both of these stakeholders in the transition of the fleet to electric in order to obtain positive decisions in this direction » reveals Guirec Grand-Clément.

Corporate fleets help Increase the utilization rate of electric vehicles

Large corporate fleets also help increase and optimize the utilization rate of electric vehicles in short-term rentals—a crucial factor for making the operation of these vehicles profitable, as they cost 30% to 40% more to purchase than their internal combustion engine counterparts and have a higher total cost of ownership (TCO).

However, this utilization rate remains low: it averaged 48% in 2023, compared to 74% for internal combustion engine vehicles.

«  Thanks in particular to corporate fleets, short-term rental hopes to quickly achieve a utilization rate of 60% to 65% for electric vehicles » states Guirec Grand-Clément.