What Fuels Light-Duty Fleets?

With more and more hybrid and electric vehicles on the road, we wondered if their popularity was making it to the light duty fleets and utility truck world — or if gas guzzlers were still the way to go.

To get our answer, we looked at light-duty fleet data from 38 gas and electric utility companies across the US in 2017. Here’s what we found:

Merging markets  

Even with the popularity of alternative fuel vehicles for personal use, we found of 45,827 vehicles reviewed, only 6.2 percent of the Industry light-duty fleets’ vehicles are alternative fuel. Here, gas fleets are still king of the road. 

Pump the brakes

Surprisingly, we discovered that not only are alternative fuel vehicles not popular in fleets yet, the number of them have actually decreased by 11.4 percent since 2012. Only 2017 showed a promising year-to-year increase over the time period.

Sharing the road

Our numbers show that the industry is accepting of alternative fuels. In fact, it’s buying more hybrid and electric sedans every year. But this class still only makes up 7.4 percent of Light Duty Fleets — plenty of open road ahead to make a difference.

In conclusion

So, what does this mean for the future of alternative fuel in the light-duty truck arena? We believe in order to truly electrify the Industry’s light-duty fleets, original equipment manufacturers will have to offer a competitive alternative to traditional pickups, vans and SUVs. Until that happens, gas fleets will be unstoppable.

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