Agency Report –
Munich – Electric vehicles (EV) remain a rarity in the car rental market worldwide, with just 2.1% of rental cars being electric last year, according to a recent analysis by the German based billiger-mietwagen.de portal.
However, the study – based on 10 million bookings mainly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2023 and 2024 – reveals significant regional differences and a clear upward trend.
“The decisive factor for the differences between the countries is likely to be the local offer,” says Frieder Bechtel from the car rental portal.
Scandinavian countries lead in EV rentals
Norway and Sweden stand out, with electric cars accounting for 20.4% and 16.4% of rentals, respectively – far above the European average for new EV registrations.
France (8.6%), Belgium (7.1%), and Switzerland (7.0%) also report relatively high shares.
Germany, at 3.7%, is above the overall portal average, which includes non-European destinations.
Low shares in southern Europe and US
By contrast, Italy (0.8%), Spain (1.1%), the United States, and Austria (both 1.2%) lag far behind. While the figures do not precisely mirror rental car fleet compositions, they provide insight into market trends.
“If you compare the new registrations of electric cars with the bookings, you can see that electric cars are still much rarer in the rental market. In Norway, for example, nine out of 10 new cars are electric, but only two out of 10 of the bookings we analysed are electric.”
Rental cars are typically newer, meaning that unlike in the broader vehicle market, the prevalence of older cars does not skew the statistics.
Barriers to EV rentals on holiday
However, there is obviously scepticism among both rental companies and customers.
“There is scepticism about electric cars, especially on holiday, because people are not prepared to deal with the charging points there, their location and the payment system in Spain, for example,” says Bechtel.
The attitude of rental firms is apparently similar: “This is partly due to acquisition and repair costs as well as lower resale values, and partly because the benefits in terms of energy costs go to the customers and not the companies.”
Bechtel says the increasing share of e-cars is due to the supply. “In the countries in which the share of electric hire cars has risen particularly sharply, the prices for them have fallen compared to combustion engines,” he says.
“That may have been a decisive force. It is possible that the rental companies are deliberately trying to increase the utilization of their e-cars.”
By Christof Rührmair
