Drive towards electric company cars

Eight out of ten business employees who currently opt out of a company car scheme are ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to move back to company cars - and these cars will be electric - according to a survey conducted by DriveElectric, one of the UK’s leading EV leasing companies.1

The return to company cars rather than employees taking car allowances is being driven by a number of issues; one of the main factors is the change to Benefit in Kind (BIK) company car tax: there will be zero company car tax on battery electric cars from April 2020, meaning that employees could save thousands of pounds each year by switching to a pure EV.2

There are a number of other factors, including EVs having lower whole-life costs, the growing number of proposed Clean Air Zones, and motorists preferring the driving experience of EVs.

As if all that wasn’t enough, the government has recently shaken things up further by announcing that it is planning to bring forward the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles - including plug-in hybrids - from 2040 to 2035 - or possibly even as soon as 2032.

Industry is already taking action: Lex Autolease plans to achieve zero net emissions across its customer fleet of 350,000 vehicles by 2030, and Lex Autolease’s parent company Lloyds Banking Group will also convert its own 4,000 vehicle strong commercial fleet to electric. DriveElectric is the appointed partner to Lloyds Banking Group and Lex Autolease for SME (small and medium enterprise) fleets of less than 20 vehicles.