Weeve

A Montreal-area company that rents electric vehicles to rideshare drivers has grown from a few hundred cars in a single city to a fleet of more than 925 vehicles across four Canadian markets – the largest fleet of EVs in the country.

Weeve, headquartered in Mount Royal, Que., offers flexible, short- to medium-term rentals and subscriptions with insurance and maintenance included. Its customers are mainly people who drive for Uber as well as taxi operators and businesses managing their own fleets.

Vehicles are rented on weekly renewals with a four-week minimum and two weeks’ notice to return. “It’s a subscription,” said Bernard Mercier, the company’s national fleet director. “I call it the Netflix of car rentals.” About 40 per cent of drivers have been with the company for more than two years. “We do it all [for the drivers], said Mercier. “We look after everything … the license plate, the extra registration of the car to be an Uber. Their servicing, their tire services, their windshield – you name it, we do it all.”

Uber partner

The company was founded in 2020 as Louelec by chief executive Léo Bouisson and co-founders David Blondot and Mathieu Courtat. Mercier said the three started during the pandemic by buying cars themselves and renting them to drivers who struggled to find one. It began putting electric vehicles on the road in 2021, the same year it partnered with Uber to give Quebec drivers access to EVs without having to buy one.

The service expanded from Montreal to Ottawa and Toronto. It then rebranded as Weeve in spring 2024 as it prepared to expand into Western Canada, launching in Vancouver. 

About 80 per cent of the fleet is fully electric, and the rest is hybrid, with vehicles including the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Chevrolet Bolt EV, Hyundai Kona EV and Kia Niro EV, PHEV and HEV, among others.

Weeve also places about 60 vehicles with dealerships as demonstrators and courtesy cars. Its Weeve Fleet service manages private electric fleets for businesses. In April, the founders spun off a car-sharing business, Avigo, that places shared EVs in condominium towers. Weeve manages that fleet as well.

Benefits for drivers

Mercier said high mileage is less of a concern with EVs than people assume. “An electric drive motor will last much longer than an ICE engine,” he said, pointing to a 2017 Bolt with 444,000 kilometres with a battery “estimated still at 94 per cent capacity.” He said the company tests the high-voltage battery whenever a car comes in for service or inspection.

Mercier said energy costs run about 70 per cent less than fuel, and maintenance is also considerably cheaper. Winter can cut range by 15 to 30 per cent, he said, so the company coaches drivers on preconditioning and regenerative braking.

“I’m sold on EVs,” Mercier said. “Whether you have the incentive from the government or not, that doesn’t change for me.”