What if the future of the clean car was parked in office and factory car parks? If there were taking shape the transport of tomorrow, made of electricity, car sharing and carpooling? According to a ViaVoice study carried out last year for the Arval Mobility Observatory, both employees and managers are overwhelmingly in favour: 76% of car fleet bosses, 74% of directors and human resources managers, 65% of employees believe that it is up to the management to give the impetus to move from the world of diesel king to that of soft mobility. Better, indicates the study, according to them, they must “tomorrow play a more important role in encouraging employees to adopt means of transport that are more respectful of the environment”.
This membership is not new, but the succession of crises, from Covid to the war in Ukraine, has further strengthened it. Last summer’s heat waves and winter’s drought were convincing. “From 2019, the sale of electric vehicles accelerated in France, driven by major societal changes, in particular the awareness born of confinement, notes François Gatineau, president of Mobileese, a consulting firm specializing in the electric mobility. Today, 20 to 25% of new vehicles sold each month are electrified.”
Pioneers train their colleagues
Companies have not escaped the wave, driven by new regulatory requirements and deadlines, the growing supply from manufacturers and… some of their employees. The very people whom François Gatineau calls “ambassadors” and whom he deliberately involves in his work of leading the transformation. “Some get into it because they are forced to, others because they are sincerely invested, he says. These impose change on their society, by transitivity.” The commitment to climate transition sometimes even becomes an argument for recruiting young graduates, who are increasingly sensitive to the subject.
“Managements have understood that the change must come from them, but very few are ready for an entirely new strategy”, underlines one at Arval. There are still too many obstacles, starting with the price of vehicles and the adaptation of infrastructure, which is still insufficient, despite the deployment of more than 100,000 charging points in France.
“2025 is tomorrow”
For Sandrine Bouvier, the e-mobility madam of the Stellantis group (Peugeot, Citroën, Opel, Fiat, Jeep, etc.), the main reason is perhaps to be sought elsewhere: “In a VSE or an SME, as soon as they have been tested electric or hybrid vehicles, the changeover is carried out without problem. It is more complicated in large companies, where it is not only a question of modifying the fleet, but of reviewing the operational processes. For example, should one reserve charging terminals on the site, and therefore reviewing the transport policy (collective, car-sharing) of employees, or installing charging points at their homes? Our job today also consists of supporting them in these reflections.”
It is high time. In two years, the forty-three agglomerations of more than 150,000 inhabitants will have to have established a ZFE, a low-emission zone, effectively closing their city centers to craftsmen, salespeople, delivery men or transporters who use old-fashioned heat engines. . As Sandrine Bouvier says, “2025 is tomorrow”.