Whitepapers
March 25, 2026
The clean corporate vehicles initiative
An impact assessment
The European Commission’s clean corporate vehicles proposals aim to accelerate EV adoption by mandating national targets on large corporates to purchase Zero Emission Vehicles — on the assumption that this will flood the used market with affordable BEVs, at no cost to the broader economy.
This white paper critically examines whether those assumptions hold up against real market data. Drawing on Indicata’s analysis of over 14 million used car adverts monitored daily across Europe, it challenges the Commission’s core premise that increased fleet BEV purchases will stimulate consumer demand without negative cascading effects.
The findings are stark: the used BEV market is already heavily oversupplied, falling residual values actively undermine rather than support broader adoption, and the true cost burden will fall not on large corporates, but on the SMEs, consumers and tourism-dependent economies that leasing and rental companies serve.
Authored by automotive expert Andy Shields, Director at USD Consulting, using Indicata’s market data and insights, this paper provides a data-driven impact assessment of the proposals and sets out what effective EV transition policy should look like instead.