Roughly one in seven (14%) cars and vans now operated by UK companies is a hybrid or battery electric vehicle, showing how much they are becoming an everyday part of transport for businesses.

UK companies have gone from having a 5% share of electrified cars and vans for in April-September 2019 to 14% for the same period in 2020

The data comes from epyx’s 1link Service Network platform, used by fleets totalling four million vehicles to buy and manage service, maintenance and repair services (SMR), and covers a six-month period from April to September of this year. The 14% compares to 9% from October 2019 to March 2020, and 5% in April 2019 to September 2019.

The data is believed to provide a good indication of how electrified (including mild hybrids) that UK fleets have become overall.

Debbie Fox, commercial director at epyx, said: “Especially noteworthy is the speed of adoption. We have gone from 5% at this point last year through to 14% today, no doubt powered largely by both the increased availability of electrified vehicles and the 0% benefit in kind company car taxation rate.

“We plan to run the same reports every six months and it’ll be fascinating to see where we are in March 2021.”

Fox added that epyx was, in common with much of the rest of the fleet sector, developing its understanding about SMR for hybrid and battery electric vehicles.

“The Government’s recent announcement regarding banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2030 has created an immoveable target date for all fleets to get up to speed in this important area, and one that is rapidly approaching.

“What this means is that everyone is learning about the real world operation of these vehicles in real time, which is both exciting and challenging. We are increasing our knowledge quite quickly but very few fleet EVs have yet gone through a single replacement cycle, so there remains quite a lot to learn.”