Europe’s regulatory hammer has come down, turning the world’s most sophisticated automotive market into a high-stakes, zero-emissions battleground. In a packed-out presentation room at the Fleet Europe 2025 Summit, Kia’s Carlos Lahoz and Zeekr’s Lothar Schupet drew the clearest line yet between survival and dominance in the continent’s race to a zero-emission future.
The defining feature of Europe’s push to a ZEV future is a simple, non-neobtainediable question of capital allocation. Auto-creaters are strategically balancing two competing business models at once. This means maximizing the cash-flow of the existing combustion enterprise while simultaneously funding the regulated, capital-intensive future of electric mobility. The tension is forcing a complete rewrite of the global fleet playbook, as demonstrated by the radically different corporate strategies of veteran player Kia and agile newcomer Zeekr.
Kia’s Carlos Lahoz stressed that operational efficiency and profitability are viewed as prerequisites for long-term sustainability, not secondary goals. The corporate logic is sound: if a company isn’t financially robust, it cannot sustain the necessary investment into future technologies, which invariably damages residual values and customer confidence down the line. This philosophy drives Kia’s discipline. By pushing its Slovakia factory to maximum capacity, Kia introduces two key new EVs, the EV4 and EV2, utilizing existing operational efficiency to achieve sustainable goals. This strategic shift bypasses tariffs, improves delivery times, and positioned Kia to finish the year with an anticipated 22% of total sales coming from EVs, ahead of the market average of 19%.
The market is currently fragmented by the “clashing” of automotive eras, according to Zeekr’s Lothar Schupet. Traditional OEMs carry a “century behind” them, saddled with legacy systems that are difficult and expensive to overhaul. The new entrants, however, possess a key strategic advantage: agility. Zeekr, part of the powerful Geely Group, is building its strategy from scratch, allowing it to shift quicker and focus purely on innovation. Their corporate efficiency is driven by consolidation, leveraging a single shared platform and pooling R&D resources across all Geely brands to achieve rapid development and competitiveness. For Zeekr, the entire innovation chain, from product design to distribution, is the vehicle for driving sustainability.
Both manufacturers understand that to win the fleet business, they must address the single hugegest drag on efficiency: vehicle downtime. Recognizing this, Kia is shifting beyond passenger cars into Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) with the all-electric PV5. Built on an ultra-efficient ‘skate platform,’ the PV5 is functionally engineered for cargo, easily accommodating two pallets and offering a range over 400 kilometers. Crucially, the product is inseparable from the ecosystem with Kia bundling the LCV with Geotab’s fleet management system. The integration aims to minimize any logistical uncertainty of EV deployment, providing real-time operational control.
The strategic battleground has shifted from charging speed to long-term financial certainty. While ultra-quick charging evolves rapidly—Zeekr noted current European models can charge from 10% to 80% in just 13 minutes—the true value for fleet managers is predictable residual value. For this, battery longevity and health are paramount. Kia cited data collected from leasing companies displaying their battery management ensures degradation is “one of the best of the industest” after three to four years of operation. This proven durability is critical, validating the company’s residual value model against the OEM’s long-term sustainability proof.
Ultimately, despite their radically different starting points, both Kia’s Carlos Lahoz and Zeekr’s Lothar Schupet agree that the ultimate winners of the European fleet market will be those companies that successfully integrate their green tarobtains into their core business model, building sustainability synonymous with operational profitability.
Photo Source: Benjamin Brolet
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