On difficult terrain: this is how the fleet market will develop in the second half of 2025

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 06. 17. 11:03

The automotive industry has not been in an easy situation for years, and the difficulties are increasingly urging a change in perspective. The supply of spare parts has stabilized in the past year, but the changing market forces and the recently announced government regulations are encouraging companies with car fleets and fleet managers to develop new strategies. Viktor Hegedűs, Commercial Director of Ayvens Hungary, summarized what we can expect in the company car segment in the coming period.

The era of cost optimization

The fleet market in Europe fell by about 20% in 2024, which is briefly due to a decrease in demand and an increase in the price of supply. However, all this is not so black and white, several factors make it difficult to stabilize the financing sector, starting from the increase in the prices of new cars, through negative macroeconomic forecasts and exchange rate fluctuations, and increasing inflation, to the tariff war that has unfolded in recent times.

Although supply chain issues have been resolved and the interest rate environment has become more stable by 2024, due to years of economic uncertainty, more and more companies are trying to optimize their costs.

“We see that while previously both supply and demand were determined by the larger D-segment, in 2025 companies are typically looking for cars with lower costs. In new car orders, smaller and lower-equipped cars that are generally more affordable to operate already represent a significant volume,”

– said Viktor Hegedűs.

According to the manager, the trend of demand for short-term rental products has also developed due to similar considerations. “We first felt the growing demand for short-term rental products during COVID, and there has been significant interest in flexible company car rental ever since. As a fleet manager, we are responding to these needs by further increasing the size of the Ayvens Flex fleet, which enables short-term company car rental, and by continuously expanding the range with models of increasing interest,” added Viktor Hegedűs. At the same time, it has also become more typical for companies to extend leasing contracts instead of ordering new cars. According to Ayvens’ experience, the current average term is over 50 months, while before COVID it was between 42-46 months.

However, the most significant challenge for the car market is that due to the tightening of European Union carbon dioxide emission rules, supply is increasingly shaping the market – and demand is only very slowly adapting to this. In recent months, it has become increasingly clear that regulators are also beginning to realize that such drastic market shaping cannot be implemented. This is indicated by the recently announced amendment to the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) regulations, which gives manufacturers an additional 3 years to meet their carbon dioxide emission targets.