Britain’s company car fleet is greener than ever and increasingly going electric, new figures from HMRC show, as the number of diesel fleet cars plummets.
In the 2021-22 tax year, diesel cars comprised just over 1 in 3 company cars. This is a staggering drop from 80 percent of company cars in 2017.
The number of electric cars, however, is up 85 percent, from around 50k in 2020-21 to 125,000 in 2021-22.
Electric cars made up 17 percent of the company car fleet and numbers continue to increase rapidly. Highly advantageous benefit in kind tax rates are helping drive the switch.
Petrol company car numbers are growing fast too though, as fleet car motorists switch from diesel.
Numbers grew from 315,000 to 345,000 in a year.
Ultra-low emission plug-in hybrid company car numbers also shot up, from 137,000 to 243,000.
Company car CO2
Overall, company car CO2 emissions averaged just 86g/km. Even excluding EVs, the average was 103g/km – despite the decline of diesel.
Only 2 percent of company cars had CO2 emissions in excess of 165g/km in 2021-22.
In contrast, back in 2022-03, a whopping 58 percent of company cars had CO2 emissions in excess of 165g/km.
Overall, there were 720,000 company car drivers in 2021-22.
This figure, based on those receiving benefit in kind tax benefits, remained steady over the previous year, stemming a steady decline from 960,000 in 2015-16.
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