In the USA, the electric car less seduced landlords than expected

ELECTRICAL - According a survey conducted by the American press agency Bloomberg News, electric cars do not recipe with landlords that do not record the expected demand.

By integrating their fleet of vehicles to electric propulsion, the short-term rental pursue several goals. It is the first of their corporate image, which aspires to do its part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Especially it comes to respond to the concern of their customers to do the same.

Two categories of clients present themselves: the occasional who find it convenient to familiarize themselves with the electric propulsion by renting a car in batteries for the duration of a weekend, and frequent customers who would be tempted by an electric during their business trips. The first represent a fairly anecdotal application while the latter should provide the bulk of the traffic Agency.

Las! It turns out that the fear of falling short of "juice" cools seriously vague desires to play the environmentalists VRP. It must be said that they already have enough to do to arrive on time for their appointment and not to miss the flying home without having to worry and more to find an outlet for their car.

Low demand led Hertz and Enterprise, two biggest landlords in the United States to revise downward their ambitions. According a survey conducted by the American press agency Bloomberg News, electric cars are rented with Enterprise for an average duration of 1.6 days against 6-7 days for conventional gasoline engine vehicles. The weakness of demand has led the number 1 American short-term rental to reduce its fleet to 300 electric vehicles throughout the United States. It is 40% less that the target that it was set in 2010, when a first order 500 copies of the Nissan Leaf 100% electric had been publicized.

It is Hertz, the goal in 2010 was to establish before the end of the 2011 Ahmad a fleet of 500 to 1000 Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, the latter being not obliged to stop to recharge its battery because it embeds a 4-cylinder petrol coupled to a generator. But even this reinsurance was not enough to convince the customer to look at the electrical and the objective of thousand vehicles on show zero no has still not been achieved, due to lack of demand. Luxurious Tesla S sedan available in two agencies Hertz are anecdotal since their rental costs close to ten times more expensive than a Nissan Leaf.

Hybrid vehicles are on the other hand by tens of thousands in the Hertz and Enterprise fleets. Cars that behave as any conventional vehicle and whose autonomy is never a concern. So far, U.S. landlords claim that fleets of electric vehicles are called to grow in the coming months. The challenge would be to focus this offer in large urban centres, where they recorded the highest demand.

BMW which is preparing to market its i3 in the United States demonstrated the same lucidity when he expects to see the bulk of the application focus in the major cities of California. It would be illusory to hope interested the people of the Great Plains of Iowa in a micro car battery.