The car rental company Sixt is following suit and is focusing primarily on electric cars for the future. That Sixt is serious about this has now been impressively demonstrated: 100,000 electric cars have been ordered for the next six years.
100,000 e-cars in six years
Sixt’s partner company is the Chinese carmaker BYD. A few thousand vehicles were initially ordered from the latter; a total of 100,000 cars are to be ordered over the following six years, as Sixt announced on its website. For this purpose, a cooperation agreement was concluded with the Chinese company. The first vehicles ordered are to hit the roads in Germany, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands before the end of this year. The first to be delivered will be the Atto 3 model, a 4.50-meter SUV with 150 KW front-wheel drive and a 60.5 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery, which is said to provide a range of up to 420 kilometers. Other models from BYD are to follow.
Tesla vehicles, too
However, Sixt is not only relying on BYD, but also wants to cooperate with other manufacturers. For example, orders are also planned from Tesla. Overall, the share of electrically powered vehicles in the car rental company’s total fleet is expected to grow to 70 to 90 percent in Europe by 2030. So far, it has been around ten percent.
Sixt is thus following suit in the car rental market. Major competitor Hertz had already ordered 100,000 electric cars from Tesla last year and recently announced it had ordered 175,000 more A cars from various General Motors brands. In addition, the Sixt competitor is cooperating with e-car manufacturer Polestar. Overall, there is a clear trend toward e-drives for rental cars.
