Establishing an ultra-low emission and electric vehicle car policy is an essential first step towards moving towards a zero emission future.

Far from being a case of just adding ULEVs and EVs into the various grades on a company car choice list, it is important to review a wide range of criteria.

A key element of this is looking at whole life costs. ULEVs and EVs tend to have a higher on the road price, however over their time ‘on fleet’ they are less expensive overall due to their lower running costs.

The development of a robust ‘green’ car policy would therefore look at the areas below:

• How budgets have been set in the past (e.g. contract hire rental, P11D)
• How the car policy can be set with upper whole life cost limits per grade to control expenditure
• The types of ULEVs and EVs that are suitable for each grade/level
• The suitability of the cars to the type of work the employees are undertaking
• Where drivers are based, and in which parts of the country they are regularly traveling – which has an impact on the available charging infrastructure and mileage ranges required
• The extent to which the policy can be all plug-in capable, or whether some drivers still require the lower emission petrol/diesel models for the time being.
• Carefully consider the indicative fuel cost

Having launched 0Zone in 2017, our teams have extensive experience of developing ULEV and EV policies, many of which are now driving large volumes of drivers into electric vehicles