Keying into EVs

Choice and education

“We’re seeing [EVs] included in programmes more from an optional standpoint,” says KesselRun VP of program management Krissy Herman, agreeing with what Smith noted. “We’re not seeing a mandate or a push.”

“We’re trying to give choice to the traveller within policy to make their own decisions,” says IBM’s Ruzsanyi. “They know the best on what kind of trips they are doing, what kind of rental distances they are driving. It’s just giving them the opportunity.”

Education also is key to increasing EV adoption rates, says Herman. But it also is “what a lot of programmes are missing right now to bring it full circle,” she adds. “[EVs] are in the contracts, they’re available if a traveller wants them, but a lot of companies are not doing that education piece to say, ‘Hey, this is available. We encourage you to rent these EVs if they are available and the cost is comparable’.”

Helping travellers understand what to expect and how to manage those rentals is equally important, says Herman. “If you’re renting an EV and you’re not familiar with them, how do you charge it? Is charging an EV reimbursable per policy? Where do you find chargers?” she asks. “Those kinds of resources are important because for non-EV drivers, there might be an intimidation factor.”

For Siemens, the US travel team “promotes [the EV programme] in probably every channel that you can imagine,” says Achterberg.

There’s a dedicated communications channel for anybody driving an EV for personal or business use to share their experiences, he says. There is a travel guideline document, including when it’s an appropriate trip for an EV rental, when it’s not, and what are the key factors to consider, like refueling fees and the recharging policies that are in place for different suppliers. The travel team also has highlighted the EV programme in a broader webinar series for employees focused on the company’s overall decarbonisation targets.

Another education element is an EV test-drive programme that Siemens offers its employees for them to get familiar with the vehicles. “The programme essentially is where we set up EV rentals in certain office locations. An employee will use it for a week or two, then pass the key to the next person to use it,” says Achterberg.

The latter has been instrumental in increasing EV rental usage for the company. “We hit almost a 500 per cent increase from 2022 to 2023 in EV adoption, and I think over 6 per cent of our total rentals now are EVs. We expect to grow that more in 2024 as far as our overall rental transactions,” says Achterberg.

The test-drive programme “is a staple part of the offering that we have, and it’s really centered around building familiarity and making it as easy and as simple and as accessible as we can to both the travel managers, and then, of course, the employees,” says Hertz’s Smith. The company also brings EVs to corporate campuses for sustainability-focused days or weeks where it offers test drives for employees.

The feedback from those programmes has been “enormously helpful for us as we continue to hone and evolve our written and video materials,” says Smith, adding that Hertz also has a hub that houses all of its education materials, including quick-start guides and landing pages specific to Tesla, Polestar and General Motors makes and models.

Though IBM does not offer Hertz’s test-drive programme, it launched its EV programme in 2022 with Teslas from the rental company. Ruzsanyi first had to get buy-in from stakeholders from both an environmental perspective as well as a financial one because Tesla EVs were going to be more expensive than the regular models in the car rental programme. “We had to find that fine balance between additional investment in order to start reducing our emissions related to the current programme,” he says.

The company launched a general education page on what to know, including how to turn the car on, how to drive it, and details on different types of chargers. Since then, the company switched out the Teslas and added in other options at lower price points. IBM also added Avis EVs in 2023. As more models were added to the programme, IBM simplified the guidance instead of creating a page for each brand, says Ruzsanyi.

With those model changes came higher adoption rates. For the fourth quarter of 2023, IBM’s EV usage was nearly 15 per cent of the company’s total car rentals, up from 5 per cent a year prior, says Ruzsanyi, adding that “a big factor in that big jump was the cheaper EV introduction. One of the key helping factors was that from the very beginning, we were looking at this as a partnership with both of our vendors.”