Mobility & fleet logistics: The shift away from owned vehicles

When vehicles stop being owned: the logistics challenge

Full-service leasing and subscription models are expected to grow from around 16% of personal and corporate vehicle use in 2023 to roughly 20% by 2030, while used-car leasing is forecast to grow at around 15% a year over the same period.1 

The direction of travel is clear: a growing share of vehicles will soon be accessed rather than owned. What is less clear is how that shift reshapes the networks that move those vehicles – systems originally designed for a single sale, not ongoing circulation across multiple users and contracts. 

From linear delivery to lifecycle management 

Traditional finished vehicle logistics follows a mostly linear pattern: plant to port, port to hub, hub to dealer, dealer to end-user. But with leasing, subscription and shared mobility, the same physical asset follows a much more complex path, moving through multiple contracts, depots and cities before reaching a second or third life. 

Take a subscription vehicle over three or four years: it moves from plant or import hub to a central compound and into first use; it shifts between cities as operators rebalance fleets to match demand; between users it returns to urban or near-urban sites for inspection, repair, cleaning and charging; at the end of its term, it is assessed, refurbished and directed into resale, another mobility offer or export. 

How that journey is designed has a direct impact on performance. For example, extra days between drop‑off and “ready” take out revenue, vehicles kept far from high‑demand areas add lead time and reduce access, and cars that cannot be collected, assessed and redeployed efficiently at the end of a contract tie up capital instead of releasing it.  

At the same time, what people look for in a vehicle is changing; where cars were once closely tied to personal identity and status, they are now increasingly chosen for convenience, environmental impact, technology and value for money, with users expecting a straightforward experience – the right car, available promptly and delivered properly. 

A leased or subscribed vehicle therefore needs a network that can receive it, turn it around, reposition it and eventually process it out. And do so repeatedly, quickly and across multiple locations.  

Designing networks for mobility fleets 

Meeting these demands means rethinking logistics infrastructure from the ground up, designing networks around flexibility, turnaround speed and real-time visibility. That calls for a more distributed setup: large ports and central hubs remain important for bulk, long distance flows, but they are complemented by urban and near urban depots designed for high rotation vehicles. Being closer to demand shortens lead times, gives operators more flexibility in where they place cars, and cuts the distance—and emissions—involved in each move. 

The role of these sites needs to evolve alongside their location, moving from storage points to processing centers. Here, vehicles are inspected, prepared and returned to service – including fast, repeatable valeting, smart repair, charging and software updates. And as electric vehicles become more common in these fleets, this setup needs to include appropriate charging infrastructure and power capacity, as well as clear processes for batteries as they move through repair, second life use and, eventually, recycling. 

And ultimately, for the system to work, people across the board need a shared view of where each vehicle is, what state it is in and when it will be ready, especially when several brands and usage models share the same network. That means designing how vehicles move and how information about them is captured and shared as one system, rather than treating operations and IT as separate layers.

A logistics partner as lifecycle co-designer 

Seen this way, logistics becomes less about “Can we move vehicles efficiently?” and more about how the network should evolve as the user mix changes – and how it can support growth, brand and sustainability goals at the same time. 

For a fleet or mobility leader, that raises a different set of questions: 

• How is vehicle planning structured today, from factory release through preparation, swaps, home delivery, return and refurbishment? 
• As fleets evolve, how are the environmental consequences of each movement—emissions, energy use, end-of-life handling—being tracked and managed across the chain? 
• What kind of experience do we want at the handover, and how closely does it reflect our brand or explain key features?  
• How well are digital systems aligned between customer-facing functions (booking, communication, proof of delivery) and operational ones (repairs, inspections, refurbishment)? 

The answers to these questions tend to point in the same direction: away from treating logistics as a set of separate activities—transport, preparation, defleet, digital—and toward a more integrated approach.  

In practice, that means working with a partner that can oversee how the whole system operates, rather than managing isolated steps. It also calls for a shift in roles: logistics providers taking a more active part in how flows are designed, and fleet or mobility operators extending that involvement beyond initial delivery to cover the full working life of each vehicle.

Logistics designed for the full lifecycle 

As leasing and subscription fleets grow, the logistics layer becomes one of the places where the fundamentals of the whole model can be improved at once – but only if it has been designed with that in mind. 

CEVA’s role is to support that improvement. We work with OEMs, leasing companies and mobility platforms to plan and operate vehicle flows, supporting better network design, faster turnaround, more consistent handovers and tighter integration from factory gate to final exit.