Lotte Rental "Industry's First to Surpass 10,000 Long-Term Electric Vehicle Rental Contracts"

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] Lotte Rental announced on the 26th that the cumulative number of long-term electric vehicle rental contracts exceeded 10,000 units in the first half of the year.

This is the first in the industry, and as of this month, the cumulative number of electric vehicle contracts has surpassed 12,000 units. Long-term electric vehicle rentals are products that allow customers to use their desired electric vehicles for a contract period ranging from a minimum of 24 months to a maximum of 60 months, and at the end of the contract, they can either purchase or return the vehicle they used.

Lotte Rental's long-term electric vehicle rental business has recorded an average annual growth rate of 126% in cumulative contracts since 2016. The company cited the expansion of business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions as a key factor for this growth. Initially, contracts were mainly made with government offices and corporations, but as driving range and charging infrastructure expanded, the use of electric vehicles by individual customers has steadily increased. In particular, the proportion of individual customers grew more than twofold from 23% in August 2018 to 48% this month over three years.

Lotte Rental explained that the main customer base for long-term electric vehicle rentals is people in their 30s and 40s, accounting for about 70% of all contract customers. Considering that the highest proportion of non-electric vehicle contract customers is in their 40s and 50s (54%), it is analyzed that the preference for electric vehicles is relatively higher among younger generations. Additionally, due to economical vehicle maintenance costs, the average annual contracted mileage was 30,000 km, which is 45.6% higher than that of internal combustion engine vehicles.

Popular models include Kia Niro EV, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Chevrolet Bolt EV, Tesla Model 3, and Kia EV6, in that order. Notably, four models released this year?Ioniq 5, EV6, Tesla Model Y, and the G80 electrified model?have collectively exceeded 1,000 contracts.

Lotte Rental plans to promote various new businesses to lead electric vehicle leadership in the mobility market. On the 9th of this month, it invested 25 billion KRW in the mobility technology company FortyTwoDot and signed a business cooperation agreement to build a future mobility platform. The two companies will conduct pilot operations of autonomous vehicles in the Jeju region in the second half of this year and plan to launch an electric vehicle car-sharing sub-brand next year.

Kim Hyun-soo, CEO of Lotte Rental, said, "Our company will continue to introduce innovative electric vehicle services in line with the global mobility market's shift toward electric vehicles."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.