The business case can be well defined as expressed in your example, which makes solving for that problem easier. Selling en mass to the general public is a harder feat for an EV startup IMO
Tesla took the route of selling low volume luxury and then went down market. Seems like Rivian is taking a strategy of special purpose fleet vehicles (and I imagine eventually broadening their focus to consumers) - both are pretty smart business approaches to growth IMO
It is, for example, how airplanes have been so competitive despite there effectively being a duopoly. Pretty much no one is buying an airliner at list price.
The last of the DC-10s/MD-11s only recently ended service with FedEx. They may actually still be flying some MD-11s.
If you’re leasing it’s not for free, the lessor is charging you a premium to make a profit over what they’re spending, so it still makes sense to own, particularly for large, heavily utilized fleets that don’t scale down much.
Our school district had a transportation manager who refused to buy electric school buses because the bottom line was they were more expensive to own and operate. He considered initial purchase costs, ongoing maintenance, the need to install and maintain a charging infrastructure for a fleet of buses, and the depreciation on the battery and replacement costs for same. He was replaced shortly thereafter by someone who promoted the party line. A referendum for a property tax increase was on the ballot within a couple of years. It passed of course, because "schools"