ROME – There is another market to keep an eye on, to understand how motorists’ preferences are changing. Long-term rental, previously chosen almost exclusively by companies, now 15.5% of the total concerns private customers.
For the first time, Unrae (an association representing foreign car brands in Italy), thanks to an agreement with the Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility, was able to analyze the long-term rental market in detail and communicated official data referring to the last quarter of 2021. “Our analysis – says Andrea Cardinali, Director General of Unrae – is based on authentic data from the Ministry, which allows for the first time to investigate the phenomenon. We can thus distinguish the share destined for private customers from that of companies and describe the composition of the long-term rental market in terms of engines, models and geographical distribution “.
Out of 135,346 long-term rental contracts, approximately 21,000 refer to a private user. A mighty leap forward, compared to the substantial negligence of private contracts a few years ago, which also highlights a particular interest in new traction technologies. 9.6% of the vehicles chosen by private individuals for rental are plug-in hybrids and 7.8% are exclusively electric cars. Cars with rechargeable batteries therefore represent 17.4% of the total, significantly more than the 12.5%, obtained also thanks to state incentives, which plug-in hybrid and electric total in the same period of the total registrations in Italy.
The route of the rental car therefore proves to be a very interesting route for private customers who want to enter the electric age. The possibility of using a car for a predetermined period and with certain costs, without fear of premature aging and leaving the rental company with the risk of experimenting with the real reliability of new technologies, is an attractive prospect. Only 38.1% of the contracts to private individuals concern diesel cars, a particularly limited value if we consider that this motorization still represents 58.4% of the rental to companies. The non-rechargeable hybrid also scores a remarkable success with 19.5% of preferences (in corporate rentals it is 14.4%) and non-electrified petrol cars are at 20.9% (16% for corporate rental) .
The other element that immediately catches the eye, in the analysis of the data, is how in Southern Italy rental to private individuals weighs much more on total rentals than in the north. In first place is Calabria, where private customers account for 45% of the total long-term rental. Puglia follows with 34.1%, then Molise with 30.3% and Campania with 29.8%. The phenomenon is partly due to the high costs of insurance policies in the south, which make rental costs more competitive compared to the costs to be faced for a car owned.