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Fleets and the company car business urgently need to change their approach to plug-in hybrids

by Paul Hollick No-one in the fleet industry should have been surprised by the high-profile BBC News story last weekend about the misuse of government-subsidised plug-in hybrid cars. In case you missed the story, TMC analysed real-world mpg data on thousands of company-run PHEVs for the BBC. Our figures show that the average PHEV drinks a gallon of fuel every 39.3 miles. That's 90 mpg less than the average advertised consumption and sign

Where next for fleets after the Budget?

By Paul Hollick You don’t often hear an entire industry say “Whaaaat?!” but that is pretty much what happened after the Budget on October 29. Fleets are justifiably angry and frustrated at being kept waiting for clarity on future company car tax (CCT) rates. The Government will say the delay is all for the long term best. WLTP has turned into a worldwide lesson on the law of unintended consequences, so it’s right to rev

UK government could bring in monthly rises in fuel duty from next year

By Paul Hollick Despite the Prime Minister's high-profile party conference promise to keep fuel duty frozen in the Budget, higher rates may still be on their way. A highly influential think-tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has just said the government should look at uprating fuel duty in line with inflation every month. The IFS says its idea would allow the government to steadily – others might say stealthily – recoup the £9b

Company car alternatives are back on the agenda.

Until the UK government started tinkering with the well-established car BIK regime in 2015, traditional company car benefits had enjoyed several years of stability. The number of car tax payers had settled at just below a million drivers. They could count on predictable tax liability because average CO2 emissions kept on falling, which offset the steady annual tightening in the BIK scales. What could go wrong? Well, not only did the governm

Do we need to ‘save’ the company car?

Company cars. Polar bears. Uber in London. RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. What do they all have in common? Well, for one thing, they all currently have online petitions demanding government action to save them. Fleet World magazine recently posted a company car tax petition to Parliament as part of their ongoing campaign to save the company car. It hopes to attract 10,000 signatures demanding reform of BIK for diesel and ultra-low emission v

Bumpy ride for fleets over WLTP is set to continue into next year, by Paul Hollick

”The story that is emerging feels like a plot that was initially looking like a thriller and is now transforming into a ghastly horror film” The Insider, Fleet World magazine. Progress in the switch-over to the new WLTP international vehicle emissions test might well be characterised by Donald Rumsfeld’s famous quote about “known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns”. The “known knowns” include the WLTP CO2 figure for m

Are you ready for International Driving Permits?

The UK Government hasn’t made plans to meet demand for IDPs if UK licences stop being valid for Europe next year As things stand in the Brexit negotiations, UK driving licences will cease to be valid in Europe from 11pm on 29 March next year. Unless the UK government reaches a specific agreement with Brussels before then, drivers with a UK licence will need to obtain an International Driving Permit (IDP) before they can drive legally or h

All taxed-up and nowhere to go. What HMRC’s new report says about the future of company cars.

The UK taxman’s latest report on benefit-in-kind tax does not look good for the future of company cars. Or for government revenues. It reveals that the £2.5 billion the government gets each year from car, van and fuel benefits is now in danger of drying up. The reasons are a mix of short-sighted increases in BIK rates, ‘dieselgate’ and new emissions tests. These are sending company car drivers up a cul-de-sac where they can no longer

Do diesel drivers subsidise the price of petrol?

You probably won't remember a time when diesel was cheaper than petrol in the UK. It was 1990 when the tables turned. Over the last 15 years, diesel has averaged 4.3 pence per litre more than unleaded petrol. At the peak of the price gap - in 2008, garages charged a whopping 15 pence per litre more for diesel! So why the difference when both diesel and petrol are made from the same feedstock, via the same process, by the same industry?

Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tehran and Tesco – why it’s wise to budget for ongoing high fuel prices

Petrol and diesel prices finally broke out of their strong rising trend last week, with the government’s official tracker showing a drop of nearly 1p per litre across the UK. But are we seeing the start of a return to cheaper fuel or are prices merely taking a breather on their way to a new high? The short answer is that UK pump prices are set to stay at elevated levels for the foreseeable future. Here’s why: Steady outlook for oil p

How Lyreco’s fleet manager HALVED his cars’ pence per mile fuel costs using S.T.Y.L.E. and S.M.A.R.T.ness

As expensive fuel looks set to stay, with some motorway stations now charging over £1.49 per litre, we talk to TMC customer David Cadwallader, UK & Ireland Car Fleet Manager for global workplace products distributor Lyreco, about his successful strategies for keeping a lid on costs. He tells us: “In 2017, our fuel cost per car user was at its lowest, as was the pence per mile, despite pump prices being at their highest for two years.”

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