Car fleets

Company fleets account for about six in ten new cars sold every year. As they are driven more than private cars, they are responsible for 72% of new-car emissions.

Because fleets contribute disproportionately to road transport emissions and can be targeted with just a few simple measures, electrification of fleets has represented for years the ‘low hanging fruit’ for governments and the EU alike in their efforts to decarbonise transport. In December, 2025, the European Commission came with a proposal to electrify fleets that would make corporate cars do their part in removing emissions from European roads. T&E has welcomed this proposal and asked colegislators to build on its current commitments in order to get an ambitious law.

Ensuring that it serves as a lever to increase fleet electrification beyond current market trends in all EU Member States and excluding PHEVs from the count must be a priority.

Corporate vehicles enter the used car market typically after 3-5 years, much quicker than private ones. The upcoming EU regulation will guarantee a continuous influx of relatively new and affordable zero-emission vehicles for private buyers. The more ambitious the law agreed by colegislators is, the greater (and the faster) the penetration of affordable zero-emission cars into the wider European car stock will be.

According to T&E calculations, electrification targets, if ambitious, could bring almost 7 million more affordable EVs onto the used car market by 2035 for private buyers. In Europe, nearly 8 in 10 EU citizens buy their car on the used market.

Electrification of fleets can be achieved in part through national taxation reforms, boosting EU-wide demand, strengthening investments and scaling up zero-emission vehicles production in the EU.

For EU carmakers, benefits will be substantial. 73% of all electric cars registered by companies in the EU in the first six months of 2025 were assembled in the EU. This share is only 63% for the private EV market. And since companies register more cars, 2.2 times more made-in-EU corporate EVs (403,000) than made-in EU private EVs (184,000) were sold in the EU between January and June, pointing at a clear advantage for European manufacturers if corporate fleets are to electrify quickly.

The corporate car market’s transition to zero-emission vehicles is already profitable from a total cost of ownership perspective. Companies also get more tax benefits than households when purchasing a car. Businesses should be leading on electrification. In fact, many companies have already committed to electrifying 100% of their fleets by 2030 as part of their broader sustainability strategies.

While the EU regulation will accelerate the pace of fleet electrification, EVs also need a reliable and ubiquitous charging network. While this was a challenge in the past, the EU charging network is growing in line with the BEV fleet penetration. The number of public chargers expected by the end of 2025 was five times that of 2020 and the charging network is set to grow by 90% by 2030 (2.1 million chargers), compared to 2025, based on ChargeUp Europe forecasts.

Charging infrastructure is key to accelerating fleet electrification. Steady deployment of on-street public infrastructure should be prioritised, together with city charging hubs including high-power charging stations, making charging simpler for taxis and private-hire vehicles. But effective implementation of the right to plug legislation across Member States is needed, so the permission of building owners in advance of installing charging points is not required and overnight slow charging at home is also quickly and easily made available.

Harmonised, future-proof infrastructure is necessary to recharge the dozens of millions of EVs due to hit the roads this decade and finally curb the increasing trend in road transport emissions.