Lyft leading the pack on EV transition

Almost a third of transport CO2 emissions come from trade-related fleets, according to the International Transport Forum.

To get a jump on inevitable electrification before a 2030 ban on fossil fuel car sales in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, many companies are taking matters into their own hands before legislation demands it and committing to EV fleet targets, says Select Car Leasing in its latest research of 35 companies.

“Leading the way by a country mile is Uber-competitor Lyft, pledging to introduce a staggering two million EVs on the road by 2030,” Select Car Leasing reports.

“With its electric fleet, it would save 11.8 million tonnes in CO2 emissions every year – the same amount saved by running 2455 wind turbines.

“Amazon, in second place would need an EV fleet 20 times bigger to match Lyft, but there’s still no underestimating Bezos,” it adds.

The first of the custom-built Rivian vans for made their maiden delivery runs this year with 10,000 of them promised to be on roads by 2022. The entire fleet is scheduled to be running by 2030 as part of Amazon’s pledge to be a carbon neutral company by 2040.

The UK government is leading by example, planning to electrify its entire fleet of 40,000 vehicles by 2027, three years ahead of the new fuelled car ban.

That could save about 236,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, Select Car Leasing estimates in its ‘Race To Electrification Index’, which has four UK government-owned businesses in the top 10.

GlaxoSmithKline, a big player in Britain’s COVID-19 vaccination programmes, aims to have 19,000 low emission vehicles on the road while BT Group has also pledged an EV fleet of 30,000.

The seven British companies making up the Electric Vehicle Fleet Accelerator (EVFA) have all promised to convert their fleets to electric by 2030.

Collectively, the combined fleet of 70,000 vans from BP, BT, Direct Line Group, Royal Mail, Scottish Power, Severn Trend and Tesco would save 413,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.