Companies increasingly are buying electric cars and trucks to replace gas and diesel-powered vehicles to move goods and people.
This week, the non-profit The Climate Group released an annual report reviewing the progress that companies have made committing to electrify their fleets and to build out charging infrastructure for employees’ EVs. The group says 31 companies have committed to its EV100 program, and there are company pledges to convert 145,000 vehicles to electric by 2030.
Alongside those pledges, Dutch fleet management company LeasePlan has committed to achieving net zero emissions across its entire customer fleet, which includes 1.8 million vehicles. With that biggie commitment, the EV100 program is targeting 2 million electric fleet vehicles from its members.
That’s major growth for a program that’s roughly 17 months old. Many of the group’s members are also building out charging infrastructure to encourage employees to drive EVs to work. Cumulatively, EV100 companies have pledged to provide charging access for 630,000 employees, according to the report.
Installing charging infrastructure is also an important consideration for providing enough electricity for the fleet vehicles, especially heavy-duty truck and bus fleets. The report found that a lack of charging infrastructure was a “significant” or “very significant” barrier for 71 percent of EV100 companies.