Green is back on the agenda
The Chancellor’s recent announcement about electric cars has certainly put green vehicles back on the political agenda, but is anyone actually changing their driving habits?
The answer is ‘yes’ according to research conducted by leading fleet provider Masterlease which has found that over the past three years the industry has seen a significant shift in the emissions levels of vehicles on Britain’s roads.
The current government tax bands on company cars relate to their carbon emissions therefore encouraging drivers to select vehicles that emit less than 160g/km of CO2. In January 2007 the average Masterlease vehicle emitted 162.4g/km. This has steadily dropped to 153.9g/km over the past two and a half years.
Fleet vehicles are generally the newest and most up-to-date models available because they are used as part of the employment package. As such, they represent a future snapshot of the cars that will be on our roads as their technologies filter through to private drivers a year or two after the fleet vehicles.
An overall shift can be seen with the vehicles that Masterlease supply. Demand from customers has dropped for vehicles falling within the two highest tax bands, dropping from 17 per cent of vehicles in January 2007, to just 11 per cent in April 2009. Conversely, the number of vehicles in the lowest brackets has trebled from two per cent in 2007 to seven per cent in April 2009.
The research shows a very real shift in the landscape of leased vehicles, which looks set to continue. Generally leased vehicles filter into the wider car mix after two years, suggesting that soon these significant changes will soon become widespread.
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