Fleet management company Fleet Alliance says it has seen a 214% increase in EV orders during the last 12 months.
It says the increase meant that 48.2% of orders it saw for electrified vehicles in 2020 were for pure EVs, up from 28.5% in 2019.
In contrast, plug-in hybrid orders fell from 68.9% of electrified demand in 2019 to 48.9% last year.
Pure EVs now account for 15.2% of Fleet Alliance’s overall fleet of more than 37,000 vehicles, up from 3.8% in 2019, and 0.3% in 2018.
Diesel cars now make up just 26.3% of Fleet Alliance’s fleet, down from 45.4% in 2019 and 58.5% in 2018, while the proportion of the fleet made up of petrol cars has risen very slightly, hitting 35.9% in 2020, compared with 35.3% in 2019 and 34.1% in 2018.
Fleet Alliance managing director Martin Brown said the figures reflected the desire of company car drivers to move to less polluting, tax-beating models.
He said: “The increase in EV orders last year was at the expense of a fall in orders for PHEVs, which suggests that hybrid sales are starting to plateau while those of pure EVs are clearly accelerating.
“The new EV-incentivising BIK tax structure has undoubtedly played a large part in the switch to EVs,”
The Tesla Model 3 was very popular with Fleet Alliance drivers in 2020, accounting for 40.1% of its EV orders, well ahead of the second-placed Kia E-Niro with 9.1%.
Hybrid car choice was far more diverse, with the BMW 3 Series just proving the most popular, accounting for 11.5% of orders, ahead of the Mercedes-Benz A-Class with 10.4%.
