Click to enlargeWhile the current rate of adoption for alternative fuel vehicles is still low at 4 percent, nearly half of the fleets recently surveyed by GE Capital are planning to introduce AFVs.
Of those companies, 64 percent plan on adding AFVs in the next two years, and 92 percent will add them within the next five years, according to the second quarter Fleet Market Economic Outlook Survey.
Of course, the survey results beg the question: What is the other half thinking?
Seriously.
But that’s a topic for another day, or for the next time the oil price hits $150 a barrel.
Anyway, results from the national survey of executives at mid-market companies also show that leadership is appropriately focused on maintaining margins and growing revenue, while rising fuel, maintenance and healthcare costs are the most significant challenges.
Still, just more than half of companies with fleets expect fleet costs to increase this year, though very few expect costs to decrease.
And half of the companies believe their firms’ industry will expand in the year ahead. Capital expenditures are expected to be greater in 2014 by 39 percent.
Additionally, 27 percent expect to increase the size of their fleet in the next 12 months, while two-thirds of executives overseeing vehicle fleets indicate that their firms saw improved performance compared to a year ago.
GE Capital surveyed 413 executives with responsibility for vehicle fleets across a variety of industries to ascertain their views on the global and U.S. economies and their outlook on a variety of economic, industry and business-level issues, including growth expectations and financing needs.
