Growing shift to short term leasing for flexibility and faster access to EVs

AN increasing number of companies are shifting from traditional long-term leasing to short-term or flexible leasing models for employee vehicles according to Liquid Fleet.

The Telford-based flexible leasing company is seeing an increase in companies opting for 6-12 and 18-month contracts to give them additional recruitment flexibility due to economic uncertainty and faster rotation into lower emission vehicles.

“Companies are looking at cashflow and are not keen to commit to long term contracts, so leasing over a shorter period of time rather than contract hiring over several years makes more sense,” explained James Miller, Liquid Fleet’s Sales and Marketing Director.

“It gives employers flexibility while those with an ambition for going green can get employees into the latest high mileage plug in hybrids and long range EVs more quickly by not having to wait for long term contracts to end.”

James Miller, Sales and Marketing Director, Liquid Fleet Tweet

The big movement is with hybrids that now account for 62% of Liquid’s 3,000-strong fleet – split 38%/24% between hybrids and plug in hybrids – which reinforces the speed of transition from corporate and broker customers away from ICE whose share of fleet fell to 34% in May.

Liquid Fleet is also receiving a growing number of requests from its larger broker clients for EVs as demand from their customers increase on the back of higher petrol and diesel prices caused by the military action in the Middle East.

“It was always going to be a case when end user customers started requesting EVs then our rental broker customers were going to follow suit. We have had a number of requests for batches of EVs which shows confidence in zero emission motoring is growing,” said Miller.