The adoption of Tesla electric vehicles is gaining traction across Europe, UK, and USA. Recently, the European car hire firm, Virtuo announced it is adding Teslas to its fleet in a drive to move to electric transport.
Virtuo allows customers to hire and unlock premium cars through an app has a goal to get at least half its vehicles electric by 2025 and all of its vehicles electric by 2030. The company has ordered 50 Tesla Model 3 Long Range vehicles to its London and Paris fleets, which customers will be able to book from June 22.
Virtuo’s CEO, Karim Kaddoura said there’s an “awe” around the Tesla brand, which is why they’ve chosen Elon Musk’s EVs. Karim added, “It’s been very clear over the years, and in the last survey that we did, that Tesla Model 3 specifically was the model that everybody wanted to drive. It’s undeniably packed with the latest features and innovations that are nothing like any other car.”
Customers will be able to get a Tesla Model 3 for a daily rate of £69 ($96) depending on the length of hire. Virtuo’s investors injected $60 million into the company allowing it to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. Virtuo has been talking about including Tesla EVs for a few years but it’s taken time to get the investment needed and resolve operational challenges before taking the step to get Teslas on board.
Virtuo has also included a couple of Hyundai Kona electric vehicles to its fleet earlier this year and it was a testing phase on what it takes to operate EVs. Karim said they wanted to test the waters before purchasing Tesla.
There is a big drive globally to phase out internal combustion engines in favor of electric power within the next couple of years. US states like California, and countries like the UK are announcing plans to go electric by 2030.
Other companies are making the move as well such as Uber and Lyft that pledged to exclusively utilize EVs within the next decade. Additionally, EVmo Inc, formerly YayYo Inc is a provider of vehicles to the rideshare and delivery gig economy sector. The company announced plans in March this year to also acquire a fleet of Tesla electric vehicles and committed to going all-electric by the end of 2021. Police departments in the US and UK are also jumping on the bandwagon getting modified Teslas for fast response services.
Analysts suggest that electric vehicles will rule the world by 2040. The gas-powered engine will likely see a rapid demise just like the horse-and-buggy a century ago. This is looking possible with the spate of recent commitments to electric vehicles by governments and car companies. Of the one billion registered vehicles on the road today, only two million are electric, and one million of those are in China. But if EVs catch on as fast as the researchers say, it would reduce oil use by 21 million barrels a day and cut CO2 emissions 3.2 billion tons a year, which is equivalent to 60% of total US emissions today.
IMF economist Fuad Hasanov who is working on EV studies says, “We were surprised at how fast cars replaced horses as the main means of transport in the early 1900s. It happened in only 10 to 15 years in spite of the many hurdles.” Today, the barriers to adopting electric vehicles seem negligible.
In 1910 there weren’t many paved roads in America, and the biggest concern was what to do with all the horse manure that was piling up. Moving from a horse to Henry Ford’s Model T was a daunting prospect and finding gasoline was a challenge in itself.
Just shows how far we’ve come from horses!
