Sustainable tourism strategies: Many holiday regions invest in an environmentally friendly holiday experience. But when it comes to mobility, things seem to have come to a standstill. E-cars or hybrids are only available as rental cars in the rarest of cases. Charging infrastructure, turnaround times and space requirements make it difficult to convert fleets. The rental car broker Sunny Cars shows why rental companies currently mostly rely on petrol and diesel vehicles.

The share of hybrid and electric cars in new vehicle registrations is increasing worldwide every year. The selection of available models is growing accordingly. Government incentives are also helping drivers to rethink. The e-growth curve for company and private cars is pointing steeply upwards. Nevertheless, there are hardly any corresponding vehicles on the rental car market. “We at Sunny Cars have been dealing with the topic of rental e-cars for more than five years. The sober insight from this: Since then, there has not been a remote solution to the problems associated with fleet conversion. Demand from holidaymakers is also almost zero.” This is how Kai Sannwald, founder and managing partner of Sunny Cars, puts it in a nutshell.

Uncertain charging infrastructure

Many travelers shy away from the store, especially when they are abroad. On unfamiliar routes, drivers do not rely on the shorter range when powered by electricity. The worry of not finding a charging station dominates. The knowledge about the travel destination often does not extend to the electricity columns. A big contrast to driving at home, where fans of e-cars know their defined charging stations. This leads to very low demand from rental car customers.

Increased delivery and turnaround time

Another unanswered question arises when it comes to returns. So far, the full-full rule has mostly applied: acceptance and delivery take place with a full tank. However, charging an e-vehicle takes much longer in comparison. A short stop on the way to the airport is therefore not enough. Instead of five minutes, the car sometimes gets stuck at the column for several hours. Holidaymakers shy away from this. The landlord also gets into trouble at this point. In order to increase the service character, charging stations would be an advantage when returning. However, this increases the turnaround time enormously. A returned car usually goes on its next journey within a short time. Considered in individual cases, this hurdle does not seem too high. However, at the larger stations there is a change of several hundred holiday cars per day.

More space and many charging stations

This leads to the next difficulty: If rental cars stay longer on site, the station needs a lot more space to park the cars. Because the current space situation is not sufficient to cover this intermediate buffer. But even those who expand their parking space initially only create the opportunity to park the cars. For the charging process itself, the local provider needs many charging stations and a corresponding amount of electricity. The question here is who bears the costs. Because usually rental partners, especially at airports, have a rental contract themselves. So if an airport decides to allocate the space to someone else, an investment in charging stations would not be refinanceable.

“We have known these problems with the starting position for many years. There is now so much movement in terms of electric cars. With regard to e-rental cars, however, there is a complete standstill," explains Kai Sannwald. "A case of the chicken and egg problem of demand and supply. The EU is aiming for only emission-free new cars to come onto the market from 2035 onwards. I'm afraid that in the medium term we won't say goodbye to diesel and petrol engines in the rental car industry. But the conversion of the fleets will and must come. That's why we need an initial spark now."